5 Strategies to Refresh Family Discipline and Restore Calm

Raising kids is a joy, but it also comes with obstacles. Disrespectful kids, defiant interactions, broken rules—they're all part of normal family life. Are your discipline techniques up to the challenge? Here are five discipline strategies you can use to restore peace and calm in your daily life.

1. Take time for a reality check

The best gift you can give to yourself and your family is to “get real” with an open and honest reality check. Set aside a quiet chunk of time and reflect on what’s going well and what’s not in your family’s day-to-day life. Are homework struggles now part of your norm? Are your kids slacking off on daily chores? Are back talk and sassy attitudes part of the mix?

As our kids get older, they quickly learn to buck the rules to their advantage. Your fourth-grade daughter may have been happily on-board with walking the dog every day after school. But now that she’s in seventh grade, hanging out with friends is higher on her priority list, so her attention to her usual chores has gone right out the window.

You're confronted with new options:

• Accept the change and begrudgingly take up the slack yourself
• Give your child a piece of your mind and dictate that she’s going to do exactly what she’s told to do—like it or not
• Have a heart-to-heart and acknowledge her feelings first, then reinforce that being part of a family means contributing 

Which method do you usually choose? Is it working for you? It may be time to change your approach.

Sit down with your family to make the time to review what needs to happen to promote household harmony. Get everyone's input and ideas so you can create a new plan that's realistic and doable for all. 

2. Review your parenting style

In my episode about parenting styles, we looked at the most common approaches parents take to raising their kids. The concept of parenting styles was introduced by Diane Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist, to explain differences in the way parents attempt to control and socialize their children.

Which of these styles do you see yourself fitting?

Helicopter parents constantly hover over their children—just like a helicopter! They monitor their kids excessively and jump in whenever they see a potential problem.

Free-range parents encourage their...

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