Disciplined Discipline

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”  - Theodore Hesburgh, Catholic Priest, Author, & Educator

Often in couple’s counseling, I’m called upon to help couples bridge the division around issues regarding the raising and disciplining of their children. This is a huge issue for many marriages due to our individual differences when it comes to parenting ideas and beliefs. People get stuck in ideas of “the best way” to raise children, often stemming from positive or negative experiences from their own childhood, and they argue with their spouse about their way being right and their spouse’s being wrong. The problem is that with every newly developing family comes new dynamics, new problems, new challenges, and new personalities, which call for a new approach.

I often encourage couples to stop trying to win the argument and to spend more time working together on what is best for your family. The important thing is that we work as a team in coming up with a plan for shaping and guiding and disciplining our family and to support each other in the process. We need to pull from some things we’ve learned from our past, pull from some things we’ve learned from others we admire and trust, and to pull from some things that we learn from trial and error. But all of this needs both parents working together and seeking not only what is best, but also taking into consideration our spouse’s needs and struggles.

As stated in the quote above, the first thing that needs to happen for the successful raising of our children is to give them a sense of safety and security in their homelife, and this starts with loving and respecting your spouse (and God) first and foremost. We need to work as a team and support each other through successes as well as failures and to continue to work together on better ways to help our kids learn about life, love, and self-control. This calls for us primarily to nurture and maintain love and self-control in our relationship with each other. 

ACTION STEP: This week, pray for more opportunities to show your kids how much you love them by showing them how much you love your spouse.