Effective Discipline for Single Parents

All parents face a variety of challenges when faced with discipline. Single parents, however, face unique challenges when it comes to discipline. Being the sole enforcer of rules and then consequences and discipline can seem daunting and isn't exactly an easy job.

In addition, when you share your kids between two households, disciplinary methods used between the two households often cause confusion of rules and difficulty with discipline. One of the best ways to learn effective discipline strategies is to know the difference between Discipline and Punishment. They are not the same.

According to dictionary.com the definition for Punishment is:

PUNISHMENT: n.

1. A penalty imposed for wrongdoing: "The severity of the punishment must... be in keeping with the kind of obligation which has been violated" (Simone Weil).
2. Rough handling; mistreatment: These old skis have taken a lot of punishment over the years.

And the definition for Discipline is:

DISCIPLINE: n.

1. Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.
2. Controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control.

So as you can figure out, punishment is a method a parent uses to teach discipline to a child, so that the child learns to behave properly on their own through self-control. We want to teach our children to actually want to behave properly.

Here are a few examples of ways that this might be accomplished:

Clearly state your expectation. "It's time to go to bed. Turn off the T.V., brush your teeth and hop into bed." If your child does what you ask, reward him with praise (rather than a prize). "You did a great job of getting ready for bed. Thank you for listening so well." Any type of affectionate reward - lots of hugs, kisses, high fives, clapping and pats on the back, help to increase their self esteem and motivate them to do it again. If your child refuses or ignores your request, then a clear warning should be given immediately. "I'm reminding you just this one time to get ready for bed." If the warning is not heeded, then quickly enforce with an appropriate punishment. "There will not be T.V. tomorrow before bed since you chose not to get ready for bed when I asked you to". Then you have to remember to enforce it the next evening, with a gentle reminder of why.

When a child learns that you mean what you say, she will begin to understand how wonderful it can feel to her when she pleases you by listening and following directions, and how it doesn't feel so good when she doesn't. Having your approval and a peaceful loving response will become all the reward your child wants for herself - and that's effective discipline.



Source: Nicole Humphrey (families.com)

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The Challenges of Single Parenting

One of the greatest challenges for us as parents is to be loving role-models for our children, showing our children through our behavior how to take personal responsibility for their own feelings and needs. Our children need to learn from our role-modeling how to nurture themselves within and how to create a sense of safety in the world. In families where both a mother and father are present, both parents can participate in nurturing the child emotionally and taking care of the child in the world, and both parents can role-model what it looks like to do this for themselves.

Single parents have a far greater challenge - they have to be both mother and father to the child. Mothering energy is that energy that nurtures while fathering energy is that energy that protects in the world - that is, earning money, setting boundaries with others, speaking up for oneself. While our society often defines women as the nurturers and men as the protectors, both men and women are capable of both nurturing and protecting in the world.

In order for a single parent to successfully be both mother and father, he or she must have learned how to be both mother and father to the Child within. In other words, we have to have learned how to nurture our own Inner Child - how to take responsibility for our own fears, pain, anger, hurt, and disappointment, and how to take care of our Inner Child in the world - earn money, set boundaries, and so on. There is no way to successfully teach our children these skills until we are doing them ourselves, which means that each of us needs to be in a process of learning how to do this

We have developed a process that teaches us how to care for and nurture ourselves, while also loving others. This process, called Inner Bonding, teaches us how to become a loving Adult to our own Inner Child and to our actual children. Inner Bonding is a six-step psychospiritual process that can be learned and practiced daily, and that leads to the development of a spiritually-connected loving inner Adult.

Inner Bonding defines the Inner Child as our core self, who we are when we are born - our natural creativity, intuition, playfulness, imagination, talents, feelings, and ability to love. Our Child is our inner experience. Our Adult is everything we learn after we are born. It is our thoughts, beliefs, and ability to take action. We start learning how to be an Adult from the moment we are born through watching our parents and other caregivers. The Adult we learn to be is a child-adult, the part of us that learned many fears and false beliefs and learned addictive ways, such as using substances, TV, spending, anger, or compliance to avoid pain. A true loving Adult is that part of us that is spiritually connected to a Higher Source of truth and love and is able to bring that truth and love down into the Child and share it with others. The adult many of us operate from most of the time is really a wounded child masquerading as an adult. It is our unhealed wounded self that causes us problems with ourselves and our children. Inner Bonding is a process for healing the wounded self and developing a spiritually-connected loving Adult.

In Inner Bonding, there are only two possible intents at any given moment: the intent to learn about love and the intent to protect against and avoid pain. The intent to learn says that we want to learn about our own pain in order to understand what we need to do to be loving to our Inner Child and others; The intent to protect says that we want to avoid experiencing our pain at all cost. The child-adult is always in the intent to protect and the loving Adult is always in the intent to learn.

The six-steps of Inner Bonding are:

1. The willingness to become aware of our pain rather than protect against it with our various addictions.

2. The conscious decision to move into the intent to learn.

3. Dialoguing with our wounded self to discover the false beliefs and resulting behavior behind the pain. Releasing anger and pain in appropriate ways.

4. Dialoguing with our Higher Power to learn about truth and loving behavior.
5. Taking loving action in behalf or our Inner Child.

6. Evaluating the action.

All parents needs to be in a process of healing themselves. It is particularly important for single parents to be in this process since they are the primary role-models for their children. The more you heal the fears and false beliefs of your wounded self, the more loving you will naturally be with yourself and your children. Learning to utilize these six steps throughout the day, especially in times of anger, fear, anxiety and stress, will eventually heal the false beliefs leading to these difficult feelings.


Source : Margaret Paul Ph.D. (EzineArticles)

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