11. Discipling children

11. Disciplining children :

Recently I read an article “ Don't try another discipline technique until u read this”.  The article gave lot of suggestions on how to discipline a child without violence and punishment.  It also enumerated on how the punishment for indiscipline should be a ‘natural consequence’ and not ‘artificial man-made consequence’. 

        Someone has rightly said that doctors spend years in medical schools to master their science. Artists spend years of effort to hone their craft.  But, parents are expected to raise human beings with practically no training or practice.

        The article took me flashback to my early parenthood days.  Every parent faces new and fresh challenges and situations while bringing up their children.  Its then that we try different methods to discipline our children and try to convey the right way and right time of doing certain things.  But then it is always ‘trial and error’ method, which needs to be kept on working upon.  I wish to share some of my experiences on this topic.

1.  Practice what I preach - to make my children understand the importance of self study and making of self notes, the first thing that I didn't do was - speak about the marks they obtained.  Instead I started studying myself in their presence and maintained a note book to jot down points on what I read.  Secondly, I have never told my children to study - they have on their own found out that they scored well in exams when they did do self study.  So many times, I could make out the day prior to the exam date, that this exam he/ she would not fare well simply because he/she didn't put in study time. But I would never speak about it while they were leaving for their exam.  When results would come they would realize on their own.  I would only say there is another exam coming ahead. 

2.  Rising in the morning to school - this one job of waking up children to make them arrive on right time at school was a huge task for me – given that the age difference between my two children is less than 2 years and in order to get them ready meant each and every task right from brushing of teeth to tying of shoe lace had to be done- leave alone packing the lunch box and school bag.   Initially I did the waking up by shouting after about 4-5 gentle wake up calls.  The morning started on a bad note and ugly surrounding and children sulked.  The getting-ready-to-school process got longer and became an irritable chore. I then realized, this was not  the ideal way to deal with the issue.  On an occasion or two, may be more than two,  I let my children oversleep and miss school ( after informing them the previous night that I won't do the waking up).  Before I could hope that this approach may work, my children started waking up on their own .  In case they feared that they may oversleep, they kindly request me to wake them and rise at my first call..  

Yes, the road to discipline is never a punishment. It's just a matter of few positive words and genuine and sincere actions.