Wisdom from my Mom...discipline is love

My Mom has always told me that while us kids (me and three older boys, yikes!) didn't believe it or understand it at the time, she disciplined us because she loved us. This stems from her growing up. Her mother died when she was 11 and she and her two older sisters were raised by a single father in the 1950s who had no idea what to do with all these girls.

Discipline was not on his radar and the girls tested the limits. She said in retrospect, she did things to get his attention just to see if he cared. He did care, she knows he did, but he didn't know how to show it through loving limits and teaching through consequences.

So I tell this to Brady now, that teaching him through boundaries and discipline and consequences is a part of love and parenting. Of course he doesn't buy it and refutes it very expressively as only he can do. But I'm hoping one day he will look back and see it as I - and my mom - see it.

I want the best for him. I love him and don't want to see him head down the wrong path. It'd be easier to let him get away with stuff, at least in the short term, but it will not help build his strength of character. It will not help him succeed in the world we live in.

It's my belief if you infuse love and communication into everything you do, one day they really will understand.

And, as I've learned so often over the years, Mom was right. :O)