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Parents often ask when is it a good time to start “disciplining”, or more precisely, to start implementing consequences when their children do not obey them. I think it is important to remember that obedience and cooperation are virtues learned with time, just like gentleness, patience, tolerance, or generosity. You cannot force these beautiful qualities into a child’s being. We work on developing and polishing these virtues throughout our whole lives, how much more difficult it would be for a child, new to the world and its many facets, if we demanded of them to be masters of these virtues in a moment.

When children don’t obey, and we think that “they should know by now”, we tend to take it as a personal offense that our child is not obeying the rules. We see the disobedience as power struggles. Research shows that children in fact need rules to feel safe, and they will push the limits to find out what these limits are, but this is not meant to be an insult to the parent. Of course you can have exceptions, and no one knows your child better then you. But in a general case, we can relax in the face of our momentarily hurt sentiments and simply counsel our children over and over again, until they get it. Applying logical consequences to actions makes a lot of sense to a child and will yield better results at obeying rules with less negative repercussions than any time-out technique. Rules that are set around really dangerous things demand more vigorous consequences. Yet, yelling or hitting a child will just make him scared of the parent, and he will obey not because he understands the severity of what he’s done, but because he is afraid of the parent’s wrath. This will definitely backfire once the child is old enough to not be afraid anymore.

One thing I find that makes a big difference in how my children cooperate is instead of shouting across the house or the yard to get my children’s attention to do or stop doing something, I go to my child. I drop down on my knees to be at their level, that we may discuss and look each other in the eyes. I will proceed to talk tenderly, clearly, and firmly. I try to not lecture, stay away from condescending, and stick to being clear. Sometimes i start with a hug, so that the vibe is a loving one to begin with. When your children obey out of love and understanding, you scored big-time.

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