The Discipline Diet

It’s the first of the year, and everyone I meet is on a “healthy eating” kick. In case you missed it, healthy eating is the new code word for dieting. No one’s dieting; they are adopting a more healthy lifestyle.

No matter what you call it, healthy eating is a lot like parenting. We’re all looking for the latest, greatest way to discipline our children, love our children, give them security and intelligence and self-esteem. So, a new book or idea comes out about how to best parent, and we’re all on it like ants on a picnic.

The problem is, whether it’s a new diet or a new discipline, I think the average person (assuming I’m that average person) has about a good week or so of new routine in them before life gets busy and you’re back at zero again.

Here’s my theory: We all have a baseline parenting style. Some of us are push-overs, or strict, or touchy-feely, or educational. Most of us are a combination of a lot of things—how we were raised, what we see on TV or on the playground, what the parent educator told us with our first child. Your day-in, day-out approach to raising your kids: that’s baseline.

A new method or strategy for parenting seems really promising, so the good parents that we are run home and put it into practice (read: try it out to see if it works). However, most of us are only willing to go at it so long without obvious results.

In that respect, dieting is much easier. At the end of the week, I’ve either lost a pound, or I’ve gained it. If I have gained, I can typically enumerate the super bowl snacks, lunch-time cookie and cake tasting that attributed to the problem. If I want to get back to losing, it’s up to me to go back to the method that produces the results I want.

With parenting, however, sometimes the results are not as obvious. Is my child’s good behavior because of my extra-good parenting technique, or is she just having a better week? Worse yet, is my son’s temper tantrum due to a lack of positive reinforcement or because he’s had too little sleep or because he’s just in a mood? Moreover, most of the parenting results I’m really after—success in school, moving out at age 21—don’t show up until much later.

The only hope I have in this is to keep trying—to replace old habits with new ones. In Galatians, Paul says this: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal. 6:9)

How does that look? I've heard it takes 20 days to build a habit, and only 3 days to break a habit. So for 20 days, I need to consciously try to apply what I've learned. I can ask God for help. I can ask my friends for support. Whatever it takes. At the end of 20 days, evaluate. Instead of looking at my kids, I need to look more at myself-- do I like myself better as a parent when I talk like this or encourage this behavior or incorporate this tradition? If so, it's working, and I have finally worked my way through to a new baseline. Whew. Now I'm tired.