Discipline: Introducing "CONSEQUENCES!"

15 June 08, 10:10PM
I have been musing, bitching, and growling about how I might contribute to improving communication in families. This is my second and last marriage, my first having been a blend of happy surrender and miserable disagreement. My first wife and I started too late looking for ways to "discipline" my three step-kids that involved more compassion and less yelling and hitting. We attended a Tough Love group a number of times that was a good first step.

At the Tough Love meeting the first Ah-Ha was the concept of "consequences." Kids need to learn there will be negative outcomes following lousy decisions. If your kid is caught "tagging" the boys lavatory, there may be suspension, suspicion following ANY subsequent tagging, searches of personal effects at school or at home until trust is re-established that no more such activity will take place. Damaged trust is a crummy pill for a kid to swallow if the relationship with parents and authority has been at all positive. And fouled trust can be incentive to straight out his act.

We tried to control her three kids, two boys and a girl, by yelling, spanking, hitting, and lecturing. The spanking and hitting was parent & step-dad out-of-control. I remember, as a kid, being lectured and hating it. I tried to lecture these urchins until they fell to their knees. It never happened, but I'm reasonably certain they all share my distaste for being lectured.

I must make clear that I have also raised a boy, now in his mid-20's, entirely without spanking, hitting, lecturing or intimidating. The difference was more compassion, some classes in assertive discipline, becoming convinced I could guide my little guy with my words and actions, and he was not a step-child, but my own.

I had thoughts of writing a how-to book for step-dads that, first, had to make clear what a thankless-feeling task is being a "step." My then wife seemed wrapped around their fingers, giving in to all their requests. I had the feeling they needed physical (corporal) discipline. I jumped at actions--that are harmless irritants by kids--and spanked or hit them.

It makes me sad that I was ruled by such ignorance and anger. It breaks my heart that I was hard on the threesome. Had I looked into some techniques, maybe read about step-parenting and the unnecessary anger that can rise so swiftly there, maybe all would have been different.

A harrowing statistic I read recently was that when any 100 child murders are looked into, 99 will have been committed by a step-parent. That means to me that there is a real threat of terrible behavior by the step-parent. It might be averted by acknowledgment of the job's difficulty, plus encouragement to learn to parent a child not your own.