I have observed and also have had parents complain that they and their spouse are not on the same page when it comes to child discipline. Many times one or the other is the disciplinarian, more structured and consistent with what they say to the children and what they have them do. That’s wonderful until the other parent comes in and tells the child "You don’t have to do that" or "it’s OK for you to do that, (have that, etc.) against and undoing what the disciplinarian has instructed.

This is confusing for the child and disrespectful of the spouse. The child is not getting what they need (to learn a lesson). They need structure and predictable consequences for their behavior, good and bad. Disrespecting the spouse stains, in a dirty way, the relationship of the parents to each other! The one disrespected harbors resentment, expressed or not, that festers and grows emotional pus!

For the love of the spouse and strength of your children, cut that crap out! Parental discipline is not the place to play some sort of twisted ‘good cop, bad cop’ with your child. It is not the place to attempt to be your child’s ‘friend’! Suck it up and be a strong adult role model for your family!

Parents, get together without the child present and work out your home curriculum. Children are a MAJOR alignment tool for couples. Determine what methods of discipline will be used, in what circumstances and by all means, DO NOT CONTRADICT EACH OTHER in front of the children! This is one of the places where the two of YOU ARE ONE! United! Don’t argue in front of the child about what is going to be going on. It frightens them. They feel responsible for the fight…which promotes feelings of guilt or some sort of sick power-playing from the child that both parents can do without.

Do you play ‘good cop, bad cop’ with your kids?

Q (Parent): If I discipline my kids and/or too consistently, what if they then don’t like me?

A (Golden Ruler): It’s okay.

Q: It’s so painful, how do I stand it?

A: Well, look, your kids will not like you only because they know you will be caring about whether they like you or not. They can’t help but love you just as much as you can’t help but love them. That’s the way God set it up.

If they don’t like you, they’re using that as some sort of tool against you. They are using it. The first thing you need to understand (or get to) is you don’t care whether they ‘like’ you are not. They gotta do what they need to do to be in your household and to learn what you wanna teach them. They can be happy about it or not. It’s up to them.

Q: What do you have to offer a parent who’s sensitive, who feels sad if their child doesn’t like them or love them?

A: If you can get over old lovers, you can get over this feeling also. Remember, we don’t want to weight kids down with our adult insecurities. This can happen on a couple of different levels and this is one of them. Your kid, like I said, naturally loves you. If your child is not ‘liking’ you, that means that you’re getting through to them on some level about something that needs to happen for them.

Q: That’s good.

A: You see? So, for their long-term benefit, you need to just nip that feeling you have that they don’t like you because they know when you’re feeling that and then they use it, take advantage of it whenever they can. If you no longer react to that insecurity of yours, if that is no longer one of your buttons, the fun goes out of it for them and they drop the bad behavior and move onto something else.

Q: And they’ll find something else I’m sure.

A: Then they will find something else,… that’s the exercise.

How concerned are you that your kids don’t/won’t like you?

Drugs, alcohol and depression facts describe a lot of what overwhelmed or lackluster parenting looks like; anxiety, restlessness, irritability, insomnia, confusion, hyper-vigilance, disorientation and sometimes acute psychotic behavior and that’s if you’re a sober parent!

What demons are you protecting at the expense of your children?