Judy Arnall, speaker, parent educator with Professional Parenting Canada, and author of Discipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery (Professional Parenting Canada, 2007), says: “While every child needs discipline, your discipline style can provide connection or disconnection in your current and future relationship. Discipline tends to connect the parent and child, while punishment tends to disconnect them.”

Effective discipline can teach your child life long skills including responsibility and self-control. Discipline should also protect and instill values.

Effective discipline can also teach and guide children how to think for themselves. It doesn’t just force them to obey. Judy says, “The world is a different place today than it was 30 years ago. We don’t want our children to blindly obey anymore. We want them to think for themselves and make good decisions.”

Effective discipline can help achieve this; it is proactive and mutually respectful. It is kind, firm and safe as well as fair and consistent. As a parent, it is your role to find the underlying causes of the misbehavior as well as teach future desired behavior. Effective discipline uses real world ‘cause and effect’ learning experiences.

According to Judy, “effective discipline avoids punishment, such as grounding, unrelated consequences, timed time-outs, and threats of any kind. These kinds of punishments can often result in power struggles. Children will often react to punishment in the form of rebellion, retaliation, fear, and/or passive resistance.”

She adds, “power struggles are really generally about meeting needs: the needs of the parent and the needs of the child. Both aim to get their way.”

When parents and children are locked in a power struggle, it is important for the parent to stay calm and let go for the moment. They have more experience in self-control and can switch gears more easily. The time to re-examine the needs of the parents and child causing the power struggle is later, when the emotional temperature in the relationship has gone down and both the parent and child are calmer. It’s important to address the issues though, and not let it go.

Judy suggests trying these common discipline tools. For younger children, try redirection, substitution, and supervision, offering choices, changing the environment, learning child development, ensuring enough nourishment, sleep, stimulation and attention. Most discipline at this age is based on prevention.

For older, school-aged children and teens, try active listening, I-messages, time-in, changing the environment, modeling, related consequences and problem-solving. Family meetings are also especially effective for this age.

A crucial discipline tool that is often overlooked is meeting the needs of parents. Parents who are hungry, tired, stressed, need support and a time-out don’t often make their best parenting decisions.

How you build your parenting relationship when your children are small will affect your future bonds with them. Taking the time to discipline effectively will go along in helping you raise a happy, well-adjusted person.