What are the consequences of parenting?
Monday, June 4th, 2007Plain Jane Mom writes about Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Discipline book, which she describes as saying that “making a positive emotional connection with your kids is the way to bring order to chaos and leave the screaming behind.”
I agree that screaming is not an effective method of discipline, but ironically, it seems to be more common among parents who don’t believe in (formally) punishing their children, who don’t want their children to experience unpleasant consequences because they don’t want to see them cry.
Consequences teach children. The goal of the parent should be to allow their children to be taught by natural consequences if possible.
But some natural consequences of the actions of children include death. Sometimes children are killed or crippled because of things they do. So maybe the goal of the parent should be to teach the child by providing consequences that are less permanent than natural consequences. The consequences of not disciplining children can be severe.
What do you think about that?
