Tonight on the way home from a meeting I heard on NPR that a new research study was being released on discipline. The study concluded that if a parent yelled or screamed at their children they had a greater chance of going down the wrong road.

My mother was a screamer. She was also insensitive. Every time she made me cry as a little girl she said it was my fault because I was “too defensive.”

I learned as a little child not to cry. It didn’t matter to her, so I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

What I would do is store the memory of the hurt and then cry myself to sleep. It wasn’t every night, but apparently quite a few, because I have a diary from when I was eleven. In that diary I wrote, “Mom was real nice to me. Tonight is 1 night I haven’t gone to bed crying.”

I had a different sensitivity to crying when I was a mother. I hated to make my kids cry.
Every time I stated consequences for misbehavior they would cry. As soon as the first tear dropped, negotiations would start for how they could work out of the consequences.

I knew that this wasn’t consistency, which is  a hallmark of effective discipline. I just didn’t have it in me to watch my children cry.

I justified this “weakness” to my Christian friends by saying, “I was showing my children the grace and mercy of God.” I think they may have rolled their eyes behind my back.

It is interesting that as my children have gotten older I have noticed one very interesting quality that they have. If I start crying because of something they said or did they essentially melt.

I may have not been consistent in punishment but I was consistent in my chosen form of discipline.

I have always believed that loving a child is the most effective form of discipline. If you love someone they will seek to please you. They will seek a connection with you and if that connection is positive and supportive they will find that avenue the most likely path to walk down.

I asked my older son once if he ever doubted that I loved him. He said, “No, I always knew you loved me, Mom.”

No matter how many times my mother says she loves me I have always doubted her love. When compared to the love of God it is lacking.

God has loved me with grace, mercy and unconditional love.

I may have had a screamer for a mother but my heavenly Father was the best a girl could hope for.