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Anyone who is a parent understands the challenges of raising children. However, I was a single mother of 3 and that was a challenge for sure. I was also raised on what I call the 1, 2, 3 method. My mom would often say “I am going to count to 3 and if you don’t listen, I am coming up there.” However, she never came up. My mom was tired a lot, she worked long hours and had a lot on her plate and as a result I got away with a lot of things as a child. I knew that when she got to number 3, that # 4, 5, 6, and 7 were following. It wasn’t until she was yelling at the top of her lungs and speaking in a foreign language that I knew she meant business.
I carried this tradition on. It was all I knew and sure enough, my children followed my actions. I remember when my children were very young and prior to meeting my husband. I joined a church and saw how some of the families in the church responded to each other. I quickly realized that many of them never used the 1, 2, 3 method. Some of them could look at their kids a certain way and they obeyed, other times they would remove their children from an activity if they were being disruptive and the child would rejoin in a calmer way. I thought to myself “what is this superpower that they have, I must get it.” I later learned it was called discipline. I mean who knew that was actually a thing.
I realized by the time I met my husband that he too had this ability. He was a man who was raised with clear boundaries and blending our families together was like mixing the Brady bunch with the Osbourne’s. I mean that as a joke, but I think you get the idea. When my husband and others came along side me to help me discipline my children, I felt like I was going into a warzone and often I would give in to their demands and pay for peace by buying things they wanted at the store as the whined in the background or giving in to things I had said no to simply because I was exhausted or felt bad. However, those mixed messages set children up for instability.
By the time I realized the importance of proper discipline, my kids were a little older, and my husband and I had a child together. We came up with a unique way of disciplining our children so that they would think twice about disobeying. We would have them write out their offense. For example: If one of my children hit their sibling, or called them a name, they would have to write out “I will not hit my sister or brother” etc. If it was a small offense, they would write it out 50-100x, but bigger offenses would lead them to writing it out 500x. This worked like a charm. They got nothing until that writing was done. So rather than giving them the stink eye, I could hold up a pen and paper and sometimes they would ask for a spanking instead. Imagine the power.
This is just a short version of what I encountered when raising my own children, but the main point is that you can pay for peace, but it isn’t true peace if you keep paying. Discipline with love, set clear boundaries, be consistent, and watch how life changes. It can be a battle at first if you never set the bar to begin with, but it is possible. It’s a battle of your will and theirs but if you remain strong, calm, consistent, and don’t give into the 1, 2, 3 method, change will occur. Children like consistency and want to know that they can depend on you. They may test you but it’s all about seeing if you mean what you say. Your consistency is more loving than you know.
