A time for discipline

When is a good time to discipline your child.

Till yesterday, we've never actually gave a serious ticking off to Niki.

That was till yesterday of course.

The first time she accidentally spilt her milk on our bedroom carpet, we told to be more careful and not to spill on it coz it's a wall to wall and it would be extremely difficult to clean. To top it off the smell of expired milk is none too pleasant as well. And so I had to dettol the area quite a few times before I managed to reduce the pungent smell and God knows the amount of febreeze I had to use to snuff the smell out totally and to number of times I had to sun our bedroom.

Of course, being a child, and drinking from the cup there were a few more slip ups but we only told her to be more careful next time, realizing that they were accidents.

Yesterday evening with her evening bottle she purposely watered our tv room carpet, that was when she got the shelling of her life, we punished her by telling her to go sit by the corner and expressed our disappointment in her actions followed by a long session of telling off. Of course, she bawled her eyes out but we did not give in this time and sent her off to bed soon after.

This morning, we reminded her again on her actions and how wrong they were; I'm sure she has finally learnt her lesson this time and most importantly we told her that our feelings for her can never change and we can never love her less, but even so we as parents; we too can get really angry; and we can feel disappointment.

Though the lesson that she learnt yesterday was difficult for us but we feel it was necessary nonetheless. Disciplining a child is something that needs to be fostered from an early age and consistently reminded throughout their childhood. Not something that we can implement on a whim or as we feel like it. In the end the one to suffer this consequence is often the child. Spare the rod and spoil the child may be a bit harsh in this day and age; but if we always rather not take on the child head on and confront them on their actions fearing that we may scar the child somehow, then more often than not we'll end up with a brat instead of a child; and we rather prefer the latter. Hence, there must be a time for the right amount of discipline and it is something that we as parents have to follow through for the sake of our children. Let's not shortchange our children; yes it is sometimes easier to take the shortcut; but let's not.