discipline

As a parent, uncomfortable situations arise from time to time. For me it’s been anything from Princess P refusing to behave at church, to Special K just being her unruly self and throwing anything she can get her hands on.

Then there are the times when I’m out and about town and see a child throwing a fit, while the parents do nothing... not even contain the situation. Those moments are great for showing your kids how not to act in public.

In the situations above, the players involved are clearly defined, and roles don’t overlap. In the first situation, it’s my job to correct Princess P and contain Special K. In the second situation, I am in an observational role, while the other parent apparently thinks they have no role to play. Everything is black and white.

There comes a time in a child's life where they know exactly what is expected of them, yet seem unable to be corrected by such things as the naughty chair. The kids are still a bit too young and shouldn’t be expected to sit still for very long.

Around this age, the kids are finally tall enough to reach the door handle and escape from their dungeon room if it is being used as the ‘time out’ spot. So what to do? You could smack their hand, but I don’t want to go down the ‘you hit your kids’ road right now. How about reversing the door locks? That sounds humane!

I get tired of disciplining Princess P. Don't get me wrong, she is a well behaved child... except at home. To alleviate both my frustration and her own, I've decided to take a page out of Survivor's book.

In the Simple Father household, there will now be daily immunity challenges. I haven't come up with a huge list of challenges yet, but the first one will be tying her shoes. If she completes the challenge, she will be given immunity from punishment for the remainder of the day.

Right now this sounds slanted in her favor because if she fails, it's just business as usual. However, that's where exile island comes into play. If she fails to complete the challenge, she'll be sent packing. Princess P will have to spend the remainder of the day in her room without any toys or books.

When children are resistant to rules and guidelines, parent's often tell them something like "as long as you live under my roof, you obey my rules!" Or, "as soon as you start paying rent, you can start making some decisions around here!"

What about when other people's children misbehave? They are like transients who pop in just long enough to make their impact felt, and then poof, they disappear like a fart in the wind. So what do you do when the transient children start misbehaving?

My House, My Rules!

There are many reasons to be consistent in enforcing the house rules. The following are five reasons that rank toward the top.

1. Your child will notice if you crack under pressure - If you let another kid get away with breaking your house rules, it shows your child that there may be a chink in your armor. Granted, your kid will probably make the association that since little Johnny was a guest, you went easy on him. However, the seed has been planted! Now there's a chance, no matter how small, that your child may think they can get away with bad behavior. Like my good friend Lloyd says, "So you're telling me there's a chance."
2. Kids will realize it's a privilege to come to your house, or they'll stop coming over... win win in my book
3. It May minimize the bad habits your child picks up - No matter how good your child is, it rarely seems to rub off on the behaviorally challenged child. Usually, it's the other way around. If there's one thing that's hard to do, it's spending a couple weeks deprogramming your kid because they learned that throwing a fit is a cool way to express themselves.
4. It Makes you feel powerful and boosts self esteem - There's nothing quite like knowing you strike fear into the hearts of small children. That kind of knowledge will let you sleep peacefully on the couch because you know that when you wake up, all of your tools and gadgets will be right where you left them.
5. Stuff won't get broken - One day, I'm sure everyone wouldn't mind if there were a few nice things around the house. When that time comes, you wouldn't want them to get broken.

Be sure to visit the other fine dad (and mom) bloggers for fatherhood friday at dad-blogs.com.

The world of computer programming can teach us many things on how to raise children. This may come as a surprise to many; after all, children don't understand the difference between bits and bytes. Even if you issue the child a simple command like "GOTO ROOM" the child will often resist, and catastrophic parenting failure occurs.

That's where the switch statement comes in. In the context of disciplining a child, perhaps a more appropriate name is the "go cut me a switch" statement. Below I have written a sample piece of code, followed by an explanation.