by Janet Hughes

Created on: April 15, 2008

Teaching Your Child to Obey Without Physical Punishment

Now I would like to state up front that I am not a parent and therefore do not really know what it is like to be in the trenches day in and day out trying your very best to raise healthy, happy children into successful, functioning adults. But I am one of 5 children who have all turned out to be successful, functioning and, dare I say it, happy adults. Well the last one is just finishing up college so that one is still up for debate!

But I do remember my childhood well, and amongst all the happy memories are a few that taught me about discipline, respect, the difference between right and wrong, and when to listen to my parents advice. I have to give my Mom a lot of credit for getting through those years with her sanity intact. I think we were a challenge each and every day, but she was innovative, quick on her feet, and not afraid to see us upset with her.

Some of the techniques she used are timeless. When we were young there was the counting to five or ten or two; whatever number she felt represented the amount of time we needed to comply and the amount of patience she had left for us at that moment. Inevitably we all tested the limit of how much she would draw out the count down, and were always surprised to learn that it ended when she had said it would and we were sent to our rooms or removed from the situation all together. Then as we got older there was the famous "Go to your room and think about what you have done" move. This, I now realize, was an expert in action giving everyone time to cool down and deal with the situation rationally. It was always followed with a discussion about what we had done wrong, why it was not acceptable in our family, and the dreaded question "What do you think your punishment should be?". Invariably we always came up with much more severe punishments for ourselves than our parents would ever have doled out, and they now had insight into what was important to us for use in future mishaps. Sneaky.

And while I can look back upon these moments in my life fondly now, and thank my Mom for having the fortitude to keep on with this pattern until we learned all of the rules that we needed to know in life. The one thing that stands out to me about my parents' discipline style is that there was never any question that they meant what they said. "Stop screaming in the grocery store or I will take you home", lead to many the abandoned shopping cart and time out at home. "Don't walk through the alley on your way to school or I will have to walk with you for a week", lead to being accompanied by Mom on each trip to and from school for a week. There was never an utterance that came out of my Mom's mouth that wasn't 100% reliable. And once each of us had gone through the trials of testing that resolve in as many situations as we could think of we just finally understood that she was serious and obeyed the rules of the family.

If my Mom were ever going to write a parenting book I think that would be the underlying theme. DON"T EVER SAY SOMETHING YOU DON"T MEAN TO YOUR CHILDREN. They will call you on it, and if your resolve falters then the stage has been set to continue testing in other areas and for years to come. And if all else fails let them learn through trial and error. I still remember my Mom telling my sister not to jump of our Grandmother's deck railing, that she would get hurt from that height; and my sister doing it anyway. After cleaning up the blood and making sure that the tooth puncture in her lip didn't need stitches my Mom asked her what she had learned and my sister knew it was to listen to Mom's advice carefully or suffer the consequences!

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