Structure your parenting role

…. Especially discipline

Children need and want structure.  Structure is essential to the sense of security which underpins self confidence and to the building of a framework of values.

Younger children especially need the stability of routines, set times and patterns, and the placement of things.  They need to have personal control over some aspects of their immediate space, and may include exclusive use of some items, such as favoured cups towels etc.

These things are part of a process of the child building confidence in the reliability of the world and their place in it.

This means your parenting must be thought out and planned, not just reactive.  There must be consistent patterns and rules which your children know and understand.

Variations will sometimes be necessary; try to give the child advance warning of these, just as you would if there were changes to your work place routines.

….discipline

Discipline is a primary responsibility of parenthood.  It doesn’t stop with separation either.  Discipline means setting realistic boundaries and realistic consequences.

Children need discipline and mostly welcome it – later, if not at the time.

An important part of growing up is learning limits.  Limits are essential to values, and without values life is much poorer.  So children who grow up without limits and values – discipline – will always find it harder to build rewarding lives.  They will always be more susceptible to peer pressure and more likely to get into trouble.

Discipline is the part of parenting that most needs structure, so that it is clearly understood by the child.  If the child cannot understand how it works, they cannot learn from it and will grow to resent and resist all forms of authority. In practice the importance of structure means, for example, trying always to respond to particular unwanted behaviour in the same way.  This is not one time ignoring the behaviour because you’re feeling laid back but then another time blowing up and over-reacting because you are in a bad mood.

It means that the rules you set will flow from a set of principles.  Eventually, your child should learn to figure out what the rules for a new situation will be because they have an understanding of the principles.

For example, you may set as a principle that inter-personal violence is taboo.  This principle might lead to the rule when you are choosing movies to see; you will not consider those with excessive violence.  Subsequently, if your child is at a friend’s place where an ultra violent computer game is being played, they will understand that playing the game violates a set of principles – even if no specific rule about computer games has ever been set.

Reliable structure means that you won’t invent arbitrary rules to suit your mood at the time, or to cover up for a mistake you made.  If there are special circumstances, explain them.  You might even ask your child to modify their behaviour on this occasion, outside the normal rules.

What’s important is that the rules are clear, based on consistent principles and consistently applied.