Q: Both my boyfriend and I were only children.
The result is that now that we are together we have more than made up for it. We have three children
The problem is that because neither my boyfriend nor I grew up with other children we are not sure how to deal with the chaos that often rumbles through our living room. My boyfriend wants to become the sergeant major, putting our house in order by demanding acquiescence and bending over to corporal punishment. I don’t think that I can do that. What are some of my other options?
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A: The trouble with corporal punishment is that while it can often give short-term results, the long-term consequences are disheartening.
If you deploy corporal punishment, you may get your two older children to sit quietly at the dinner table and eat their spinach.
But in the long term, you are likely to find out that your children would rather not come to the dining table at all.
The option to corporal punishment is guidance.
When you are guiding your children, you are doing more than just yelling at them or spanking them for noncompliance. You are sitting in discussion with them and showing them, rather than telling them, the proper rules of etiquette.
The kids are likely to get impatient with you and may act out a bit, and that of course is not acceptable. However, you don’t need to spank them. Just send them to their rooms for brief time outs.
Don’t forget the part of the time-out that says you and the child are going to have a little talk afterward to help the him know why he was given a time out in the first place.
There are a number of time-out options, which you can find on the shelves of any bookstore.
What I would like to suggest is that you and your boyfriend spend some time going through the books written about child care with an eye to picking just one option to serve as a guiding light for both of you.
It has to be something with which each of you is comfortable. Just make sure that it is something other than corporal punishment.
Then throw out the other books and commit both of you to the strategies of the book you found acceptable. At least then you can be working together on this thing. And while you are doing that, I hope you remember that your children are still young. Some chaos at their ages is inevitable.
