Why Should Children Obey to Their Parent

hen children are born, they are like blank slates on which their parents' help to script the beginnings of the stories of their lives. Every child grows up and ultimately charts his own destiny, but his parents lay the foundation. And everybody knows the consequences of building on a weak foundation. Disciplining your children is one way of setting them on the right path and equipping them to wing it on their own.

Disciplining a child is comparable to walking a tightrope. Parents have to maintain a delicate balance between over-indulgence and authoritarianism. However, parents often do not perceive discipline as being such a delicate business. For most parents, discipline operates on a simple principle. If the child does not meet the standards of 'good' behaviour set by the parents, he must be disciplined. This is one way of looking at it. The child that does not tidy his room or one that throws a tantrum, or one that talks back to his parents-all of them must be disciplined. But these are short-term goals that shift from situation to situation. Disciplining is not only about showing your child who's the boss. This is a very shortsighted approach. In general, people do not react favourably to criticism and children are no different. If a child is frequently criticized by a person whose opinion he values (in this case the parent), he may lose confidence in his judgement and actions. So parents have to realize that discipline is about more than getting your child to clean up his room or controlling a tantrum.

In the long run, disciplining your child is aimed at teaching him to internalize the standards of behaviour so that he can be the judge of his own behaviour and realize what is acceptable and what is not. Parents have to teach their children what is good as well as what is bad. Therefore, discipline does not merely involve correcting their mistakes, but also showing them the right thing to do. Thus discipline does not have to be just a negative process,...