Because I said so, that's why!

I had a conversation with an associate the other day about my son and his worsening behavior problems. This person, a man in his forties, has no children, never married. As such, he is an expert on parenting and did not hesitate to fill me in on what sort of discipline and structure my son needs.

I also had a chat recently with a close friend about discipline. She actually is a parent and is experiencing some behavior problems herself. (Not herself, I mean her kids.) She says that successful parenting means instilling enough fear and respect into the children when they are young so that they develop the lifelong habit of obeying you.

The problem with this approach, as I see it, is that fear and respect are two different things. It’s possible for a child to feel both toward a parent, but one does not necessarily imply the other. A child will obey out of fear--until he matures enough to recognize his own power and then the fear is diminished. If the respect hasn’t been established as well, he will not obey a parent he no longer fears. In fact, he will probably resent that parent for making him afraid all those years and will rebel all the more.

My dad was the disciplinarian in our home. He did spank me, with a belt, and I feared him. Unfortunately he died before I developed any respect for him. The lessons I learned about respect came from my mother, who rarely disciplined me at all. I found that disappointing her made me so miserable with guilt and shame that I almost always obeyed her. On the oher hand, making her proud was a very good feeling, so my choices often reflected that.

Here in the south, we like to teach our kids to say "sir" and "ma'am" and call ladies "Miss." Is that respect? Or just good manners?

In my desperation, I’m trying to find a successful formula for my son. People keep warning me that I must get a handle on it now or I will be in for a horrifying decade when he hits puberty. I’m trying to find the perfect mixture of structure and discipline (which is difficult because it’s not in my nature to be structured or strict) with flexibility and communication that fosters the respect and compassion I learned with my mom. I would rather my children obey because they feel rotten when they disappoint me than because they fear the punishment I might dish out if they don’t.

For childless people, parenting is a "simple" matter of structure and consistency. For a single parent without the support of family, friends or neighbors, what seems simple is in reality an impossibility. All we can do is give it our best effort and ignore the criticisms and judgments from those who know all the answers.