Emotional Control

The New York Times recently published an article about yelling at your kids that I discovered through a couple blogs that I follow (Nathan's and Digital Dads). It opens up a nice debate about various forms of discipline, but that is not exactly what it got me thinking about.

I started thinking about why we discipline. There are lots of good reasons, and lots of bad ones. One of the reasons in between is to "control" our children. I think it is good that parents have accountability for what their kids do in public. I do not think it is good if parents expect their kids to be perfectly responsive robots.

In the end, though, we cannot control our children. Like it or not, they are independent (and often willful) individuals. We can intimidate, encourage, coerce, bribe, threaten, punish, and cajole, but never control. In fact, the only thing we can control is...us.

So that brings me back to the question of discipline methods. I am averse (not immune) to yelling not because it is ineffective, but because it demonstrates a loss of emotional control. Spanking is arguably legitimate discipline...if used in an emotionally controlled environment. Uncontrolled emotional spanking is little different than plain physical abuse.

I think that the key to effective discipline is not the method, but the source. It is ok to feel emotions. It is not ok to let the emotions control me. If I am controlling my emotions, discipline will work. If my kids are controlling my emotions, and my emotions are controlling me, discipline fails.

This is my thinking based on 2 years of fatherhood with 3 kids. What's your experience?