Discipline

[DrFaroohk]

Disciplining the kids is too hard. Well, not the discipline, but figuring out the truth.

Perhaps I have too much sympathy here. I was always getting punished for shit I didn't do as a kid, simply because I looked "guilty". Although the look of panic that adults took as guilt was actually "oh crap, you're the stupidest looking human I've seen so far and you're about to fuck me in some way".

And now when I see the same things from little Jeffrey I honestly wonder if I'm wrongly punishing him for something. And to me, that's just about the worst thing. I think there's no better way to give a child a skewed sense of personal accountability and the workings of the world than to keep screwing them in some way.

So when little Jeffrey comes home and tells me how he got in trouble for something in school that he didn't even do, i don't know how to handle it? He's "probably" lying, but really, is that a good enough reason to send him to his room or no TV for the day or something? Even at kindergarten age, I used to want to literally stab the people who punished me for something I "probably" did. cuz it happened a lot. And I don't want to do the same thing to him.

Imagine if our justice system worked like that? "you probably killed that guy, life in prison for you!"

[telecom_goddess]

Tough one.....I've had one of my kids falsely accused of theft before and ended a friendship for a long time because of it. It was proven to be a false charge several years later and while I'm talking to this friend again it's not the same as it was before.

I never punished my daughter for that because I was convinced she didn't do it. I stood up for her and I was proven right in the end.

I guess go with your instinct but if there is any doubt then don't be harsh on him. If there is a way to get proof then yeah he deserves the punishment.

[Evandril]

I've been lucky with my kids...They'd learned that if they lied about something, they were punished worse than if they'd have just stayed quiet and been caught...and FAR worse than if they'd owned up to it. Look at all the facts, find out *why* the school believes what it does, and *LISTEN* to your kid's version. Easy to forget that part, and, generally, if you have your kid tell you everything that happened, and lead up to it, you can get a good idea of what really did happen. Heck, even dishonest kids tend to be closer to the truth than adults who didn't bother finding out what happened, just made up their minds on the spot, in my experience.

[Boozy]

I don't have kids, so I can't offer much advice. But I'll say this: You're always posting about your concerns about parenting. Anyone who worries that much about the kind of job they're doing as a parent is probably doing okay.

[DrFaroohk]

Yeah, I used to think I was a shitty parent, and maybe I am, but my stepson is turning out okay now that his stepdad stopped being such an asshole, and my daughter is just a shining jewel. And lately we've had lots of social events that involve taking the kids with us, and our kids are always the best behaved ones there.

So we must be doing SOMETHING right...