Discipline and Learning

The way to a healthy childhood needs discipline and consequences. I can only believe in this statement more over for every day that I live. The kids that I see at school and out in public are so scarily similar when they are always fighting with their parents or being rebellious. Although, I think that my childhood was very different from all the other kids I see and that also plays a role in my belief. Then there is the situation that I come home to almost every day after school to a household of yelling and screaming.

As I grew up from the little toddler I was, I had lived under my dad’s scary authority. I quickly learned that my dad had a very short temper and his yell would scare me deeply. I grew up being very passive and quiet because that is how my dad liked it. One time I had accidentally stepped into his coke that was one the floor and he had yelled at me and gave me a timeout. My mom, knowing my dad was a little drunk, had to spend the next half hour talking me into coming downstairs and to stop crying. They later went through a divorce and that had a major impact on everyone. My mother had quickly found another person who she ended up marrying later on while my dad and I had slowly bonded. He had stopped drinking for awhile and our relationship had become a lot closer even though I had already learned deep inside that I was to be cautious at all times with my dad. He went through a number of girlfriends but he finally dated and married Susan, who is my stepmother, a year after my mom married Bill, my stepfather. My relationship with my dad had to make room for one more person and the bond we had slowly disappeared after the move to a new and bigger house. I had to leave my friends while my dad had started up drinking again. But when my mother had dated Bill, my mom became pregnant and had my sister Samantha.

Samantha wasn’t too much of a concern for me at first; after all I thought it was exciting that I was finally going to have a sister. The first hint we should have taken was how much she kicked inside my mother’s belly. After she came out, I quickly learned that she was very different from me and definitely not as passive and quiet. She entered her “terrible twos” and never seemed to come out. She would constantly cry and whine to get things she would want. My mom had caught on quick and carried out consequences for bad behavior. Although, my stepdad became the person my sister would cry to for everything because she had quickly learned that he was more forgiving and merciful. She had used it to her advantage and became spoiled. The household quickly became a team against team environment and that is how it is today. My dad and Susan recently had a baby too and her name is Alisha. She is two and so far it has gone the same way as my other sister which tells me that I was just especially scared or that dads are just softies towards their daughters.

My experiences throughout my life so far have only strengthened my belief. I also think that you can never truly love your own child unless you have disciplined your child correctly and pay attention to what can hurt them throughout life. Although, I do agree with letting them learn on their own at times but children are not to be independent at such an early age. A child’s life seriously depends on their parent’s choice.