As quoted from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, discipline is training which produces obedience (= willingness to obey) or self-control, often in the form of rules, and punishments if these rules are broken. How about punishment? The dictionary further defines punishment as to use or treat badly, violently or without care.

So, here we are presented with the definitions in black and white.

Let's make sense of these definitions with respect to child behaviour; When we discipline children we are effectively training them to have willingness to obey a set of rules that should not be broken. We can also interpret that we are effectively training the children to be able to have self-control to comply with the rules. The consequences for breaking the rules are harshly spelt out.

Basically, the whole philosophy is centered around fear. We are actually dealing with a case of discipline being a form of training based on rewards and punishment system in the name of obedience and self-control.

In a nutshell, disciplining involves some form of objective focused training whereby success is rewarded and failure is punished.

Critique:

Get it right, there is absolutely nothing wrong in praising an achievement. A pat on the back to the deserving is much appreciated. The big issue is, how on earth do you train someone to be obedient if when they fail they get treated badly, without care and even violently? Is this not a form of manipulation?

Because they failed, is it not fair and sensible to establish the root cause of failure and then step up the training resources focused on tackling the source of failure if the objective is sincerely to instil self-control? It seems the rules of engagement have been changed and unfortunately, now the training is focused on violence, neglect, and hate.

If the trainees will ever come close to obedience following this new regimen, then I am afraid this will be lying and blind obedience to authority, and as for self-control? Forget it, seriously.

So does this mean disciplining methods are all the same? A big NO, but in relation to children behaviour, most parents often find themselves trapped in either violent disciplining methods or those that are ineffective and brings about a lot of long term difficulties for both the parents and children.

Get Your Child To Listen To You

You can not possibly force your child to take responsibility by standing them in the corner for an agonizing grilling and expect them to take it in lightly. It may work for a very short time but when escalated, this parenting method has the potential to bring even more serious problems such as depressive symptoms and psychiatric disorders in the long term.

Understanding children behaviour and how to discipline children to make them take up responsibility requires skills set that empower parents to implement strategies that establish rapport with children. This has the benefit of being able to drill right down to the source of behaviour concern and that can be addressed successfully within no time and without stress due to reduced resistance.

Reduced resistance? Yes, now that you have established a connection with your child, you can get through to them with relative ease, sound fair? Rather than risk bad parent behaviour, the key here is to make children cooperate with us more so that we can be able to get through to each other any time there is a need to do so. In this way there is mutual understanding and respect.

This democratic parenting method not only makes life easy for the parent (for example involving the child to solve their problem), but it makes children feel included in the process of life's day-to-day activities, boosting their self-confidence and bringing about many more benefits that make difficulties of children behaviour a problem of the past.