Equal Parts

Some time ago, my brother and I had a conversation about raising children.

To give you some history, our parents divorced when I was 6 and Ted was 3.
Mom remarried first. Our step father (Papa) was a great provider, a funny man when he wanted to be, smart and he was an alcoholic. Our Mom would make a tremendous effort to create a diversion when Papa was out of control. There is a whole lot of drama going on here, so, let's go have a lot of fun over there. We were so fortunate to have such a loving and energetic Mom, especially given the circumstances.....she was our survival, and honestly, I believe we were hers.
Anyhow, Papa was a huge disciplinarian. He yelled, he punched walls.....Papa gave us hell about most everything from parking on the grass (absolutely not allowed and we still laugh about it today) to calling us out of our room WHILE WE WERE DOING HOMEWORK to get him a beer out of the fridge.
He barked about our grades in school and about doing our chores.

So, to return you to the point, Ted and I were talking about this...that even though we had to go through an unnecessarily dramatic childhood (living with an alcoholic), we did have love and discipline.

Now, as a parent, I believe that although the formula was all wrong in my childhood, that the recipe was exactly right.
Equal parts love and discipline.
Discipline is SO necessary as we raise our children. Discipline offers our children an understanding of boundaries, rules, laws, exercising self control and so much more, while Love offers a safe haven, a warmth that you cannot touch, but can feel, even at a distance. Love helps you to be empathetic and kind to others. Love is the mortar that holds our society together.

The complexity of discipline is finding the balance and tweaking the recipe so that it bakes up a nice, respectful, happy child. In comparison, Bella will listen, mostly, to the first command of direction. Lexie will push to the finish.
So, the recipe for discipline is different for each of my girls. The love ingredient is equal.

I struggle with the right way to discipline my children. Spanking, not spanking. Time out, privileges revoked, etc. This is something that keeps me awake at night....and the reason for that is that I heard, once, that we are not raising children, we are raising adults. I believe that statement to be absolutely true!
So, every disciplinary action we take, every choice we make in their lives for them as children will mold them into adults.
The crazy thing is that just when you think you have a nice solid formula for parenting, the children will change an element for you...so, essentially, you have to return to the lab to muster up another formula. WOW, no pressure!

As any parent, I can only hope that my girls remember the love, understand the importance of discipline and (cross your fingers) never end up on the couch of a psychiatrist as a result of my "recipe"!