Discipline Demanded

Recently, I witnessed an interesting interaction between a mother and child in an airport.  The scene is most likely familiar to all of us, either by direct experience with our own child or watching this play out with someone else child. 

The child was screaming uncontrollably, the mother was more than annoyed, and she was embarrassed in front of all those watching.  What is a parent to do at these moments?

The question of “What is the best way to bring up a child?” is as old as civilization.  There is no one answer, except for “It depends.”

It depends on what?  The child, the parents, the family traditions, or what?  Again, we run into confusion.

There are impulses that occur in humans that are the underlying cause of behavior.   There is no doubt that children are self-centered if not selfish to the bone.  They are needy and demanding. 

What is the responsibility of the parents?  What is necessary for parents to do for their child to have them assimilate successfully into society?

Listening to birds sing in the morning is a beautiful thing.  We enjoy and marvel at their songs. What is the singing all about?  Are those notes there to please us humans?

The reality of those songs is a biological function of competing for a mate.  As found in much of the animal kingdom; the mating rituals are sometime brutal and fierce. 

What appears to be pleasant to our human ears is far different in function for the birds doing the singing.

What does this have to do with child rearing?  Just this; there are underlying factors taking place in the undeveloped child that is in competition with its parents.  That lovely beautiful little baby is in a battle with you. 

Left alone, that child will become an outcast from society.  With no instructions, the inner drive and struggles will be turned more inward only making the child increasingly unruly, uncompassionate, and selfish. 

There are several unfortunate cases of child neglect that represent an outcome of what I speak.  Situations that leave a child wild, unmanageable, and anti-social. 

The “It Depends” is an issue that every parent needs to examine with respect their child.  There are two questions to have answered: First, Do I raise my child to be safe or strong?  Secondly, is what discipline being necessary, and how much?

The answer to the first question highly influences the answer to the second.  If safety is perceived as more important than being strong, there will be problems.  Just as the bird’s song is deceptive, us keeping our children safe if an illusion. 

Chaos and evil is in our world.  Circumstances will confront our children just as it has in each of us.  The question then becomes, how do we prepare our kids to face these events? 

This is where discipline comes in.  Your child needs to be included and hopefully accepted by their peers as well as society.  For that to occur your child needs to be liked, and enjoyable to be around.  Being liked is an intentional process of development.  Parents need to drive out that selfish, self-center, and egotistical basic nature.  Children need this, they need to know the boundaries of behavior, and work within them.  This is no trivial matter for the parent or child.

Recent developments in society has made this process more difficult with the development of “feel good” implementation.  It does not feel good to be disciplined. 

In my last post, I wrote about the school yard bully, taking a stance, and the significance regarding a person’s long-term improvement.  The things occurring in the school yard are forms of discipline. 

If “feeling good” is the goal, what about the difficult decision and discipline necessary to form children to be liked?  You see, it is not about feeling good, it is about finding your place in society to do good.  One cannot do that if society will not accept them.

Parents must do the difficult thing, show, and teach their children what it means to behave in a favorable way that will allow them that platform on which that can bring good into the society. 

There are no examples of outcasts ever doing anything [using my analogy from my last blog “A rising tide raises all ships”  that created a rising tide.  It is the opposite, they sink ships to keep their ship afloat.

It takes an individual who can use influence to create a rising tide.    

If it takes harsher discipline to accomplish that because of the child’s disposition, outside influences ought not interfere with that process.  After all, it is for not just the child’s benefit, but also for societies.

Naturally, one must distinguish between discipline and abuse.  Abuse is for the benefit of the abuser, discipline is for the benefit of the child.  

The aspect of safety needs to be examined also.  The ratio of safety/strength is a tenuous subject.  Broadly speaking, the bully in the elementary school yard, though fearful, is still much safer that the ordeals one would experience in prison. 

How safe do you keep your child versus how many situations do you allow them to get into?  Much of that is out of the parent’s hands. 

In addition to the bully, parents need to instruct, by any means possible, to show their children proper behavior that will benefit them and society by being an influence rather than a detriment.   Put more succinctly, to have them put “good” back into society, thereby raising all the ships.

Attila B. Horvath, author