Wednesday's Child

Wednesday’s Child

Disciplining a child has taken on a whole new complicated world of bartering and the option on the child’s part to say, “No” to the parents’ decision to curb his behavior!

I am always surprised when a parent says, “We’re not going to do that again, are we?” and the child doesn’t answer, and the parent thinks the situation has been temporarily solved until the child decides that he will certainly do the behavior again. Why?

Because there are no obstacles. What will happen to a child if he does? Will he be sent to his room, yelled at, spanked? Probably not. When I was a child, I thought the world would come apart if I sneezed wrong. I wouldn’t have done a single thing to upset my parents because the consequences would have been earth shattering. Was I spanked a lot? Rarely if ever. I was a good child because I wanted my parents to love me. I realized that my behavior was a gift to them for all they did for me.

In today’s world, the respect or love between parents and child has changed. Children expect without exchange. What were once great luxuries are now taken for granted. Dinner out, a movie, a new toy are everyday expectations, and it doesn’t occur to parents that taking these things away from a child is part of discipline. Discipline, I’m afraid, has to hurt. That doesn’t mean a parent has to strike a child.

It means that structure has to be reinstated when it has failed. No one can be a good student without some effort toward learning. No one can be well behaved without some effort toward loving. When a child’s behavior is out of control, what he is saying is that he has not learned, or he has forgotten what it means to love. He needs to find out. The question is always how?

At school it’s easy. We use the medal. When a child is loving and careful and well behaved, he keeps his medal and gets a supply of treats through the day. When he has forgotten what it means to love one another, he loses the medal and is separated from the group in matters of sweets and prizes. For most children once is enough.