Getting Tough as a Parent

My son is doing much better at church. I have continued to work on disciplining him consistently, and at the first offense. When I taught school it made me not want to have sons, because I thought that boys were just a huge headache!! Almost all of the boys that I taught were so unruly and overactive.

When I was a kid growing up I surmised that the kids who behaved the best seemed to have mean parents, and the ones that were disrespectful had parents that were really nice. I wondered about that, and figured out that only mean parents had good kids. When I say mean, I mean parents that did not take any stuff from their kids, and the kids had to do what the parents said, or else.

That's the kind of parents that I had. We didn't question what they said, we just did it. Because we had enough sense to know that there would be major consequences if we stepped out of line. My parents gave us lots of love and attention, but they commanded respect, and did not tolerate any ounce of disobedience or disrespect. I remember my mom telling me about teachers asking her about how she raised her kids, because they were so well behaved. I thought that was interesting until I became a teacher myself. I had one male student in particular who was very nice, well mannered, never disrespected me or any other adult, was kind to others, and on top of that he was a handsome, popular, football player! All of those qualities together was just unheard of at the school that I taught. It was kind of a rough school.

Anyways, I kept thinking, wow, I would like to meet his mother, and ask her what she did to raise him the way he is. I did meet his mother, and she had the sweetest disposition. She was a pretty, soft-spoken, and very feminine lady. I complimemented her on how well behaved her son was, but never asked her about her parenting techniques, but I sure did want to, I just wasn't in the position at the time to ask her.

Right now as a parent, I'm learning to continue to be firm and command obedience the first time. It can be quite exasperating, but, I know that it will pay off. I'm determined not to spoil him, and give him everything that he wants. From what I've seen all that does is lead to heartache for parents later on. Lots of love, and enough discipline to make him obedient to me the first time asked, are my focuses right now.