by Vivianne Ellis

Created on: March 20, 2009

The biggest mistake that parents make when disciplining their children is not to discipline them at all. Children need boundaries and limits in order to feel secure and to know how to act at any given time. If you do not discipline your children they act inappropriately and others such as school teachers discipline them - the child can become very confused. It has been established that children need consistant, fair discipline to become well rounded people in their own right. There are however some basic mistakes that many parents make when they discipline their children and here are some of them and their solutions.

1. Never discipline your child when you are angry. If you are annoyed with the child the discipline you give them will probably be unfair at the least and abusive at the worst. People tend to lose perspective if they are enraged and bad decisions can be made. Children have a way of pressing all your buttons and you need to recognize this and step away until you are calm, before you deliver a punishment. By all means tell the child that they will be punished but you do not have to go ahead with the disciplinary action until you are ready. The only exception to this would be if you need to put the child in time out immediately. This takes care of you moving away from the problem anyway. Never lose your cool and yell at the child. It negates any disciplinary action as you bring fear into the equation. Although you are disciplining your child you do never want them to be fearful of you. Not at all. Any time. So take a breath, walk away, think about what happened and come back when you are feeling more in control.

2. Do not fall into the parental trap of disciplining all of your children because you do not know who to discipline or did not see who was the perpetrator. That is patently unfair to the innocent child who did nothing and sends a message to the 'bad' child that they can manipulate both you and the situation. It also shows them that even if they lose by being punished, so does their sibling. If this happens a lot you will have to find a way to observe the children more closely or keep one child with you if you must be out of the room.

3. Make sure the punishment fits the crime. Men especially are the worst perpetrators of this mistake. If your child scribbles on the wall by all means make them clean it off but don't make them clean every wall and floor of the house with a toothbrush. Or if they tell a lie then make them write out why they must

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