Ways To Discipline Our Kids

Disciplining children can be a nightmare but there are things we can do as parents and carers to make things easier for ourselves. I taught my kids at a young age that there are certain consequences for our actions, whether good or bad.

When our kids learn to accept certain laws and abide by them it makes discipline so much easier. These are just a few simple things that my kids have learned over the past few years:

* when I spend all my pocket money on the first day I have no money for the rest of the week
* if I am late for school I am likely to get a detention from the teacher
* if I run in the house and fall over I am likely to hurt myself
* if I don't keep my room tidy I most probably can't go out and play with my friends
* if I break someone else's toy I might have to replace it with one of my favorite toys
* if I am mean to my brother chances are he won't want to play with me very often
* if I don't take my hat to school I won't get to play on the playground at lunch time

The above examples take the pressure off having to find ways to discipline our kids. We need to learn to use consequences to our advantage as much as we can. The great thing about this is that when the consequences happen we don't need to take part and growl or do anything. Most of these are natural consequences that are a direct impact of a not so good action preceding.

There are also good consequences that follow great decisions and here are a few examples:

* if my room is tidy, mom is likely to let me go to my friend's house
* if I am always at school on time I will have a good reputation and the teachers will be happy with me
* if I save some of my pocket money I will get to spend it later on in the week

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Parents should not allow our kids to use consequences where it is a safety issue. an example would be not to let your kid run in front of a car and let them learn by getting hit by it.

Once kids understand that this is the way that the world operates they will learn to abide by the rules and then they won't see you as the enemy or spoil sport in their lives. This is important as you want to preserve your relationship with your kids as much as possible.

At least eighty percent of our interaction with our kids needs to be positive. By ensuring this we help our kids to establish their self esteem and feel good about themselves, which we all know is vitally important.

These are just a few tips to help parents rethink their plans on disciplining kids.