Becoming a father has taught me so much about myself, mainly my weaknesses. One of those weaknesses is impatience. When dealing with discipline issues with my kiddos, I tend to default towards more pragmatic methods like raising my voice, sending kids to their rooms, and not giving my kids the chance to talk or explain themselves. Typically this is done in the name of “teaching respect” but often has the opposite effect. When I get into the mode of punitive discipline, I sense my kids withdrawing from me, and often just tuning me out. You see, I have smart kids. We all do. They have an intuition that goes way beyond our adult minds. While we are thinking about what needs to be done next and are always in a hurry, our kids are masters of what it means to be present in the “here and now”. Our kids don’t have to worry much about what is next (though they do ask about it some), so they are much more in tune with the feelings and actions of the adults in their lives.
