Leadership Can Require Acting Ability

The past 30 years or so have seen mental health professionals treat discipline as if it were primarily a matter of technology. We’ve devised an array of technologies for getting kids to go to bed, stifling sibling battles and handling disobedience. The list goes on and on.

In my own way, I’ve contributed to the notion that the most effective disciplinarian is the parent who searches out and masters the greatest number of these technologies. Sorry about that.

Although some of the various disciplinary “tricks” mental health professionals have come up with are creative and can be helpful in a certain context, discipline is not primarily a matter of technique. It is a matter of leadership. More specifically, it is a matter of commanding the attention of one’s children. The parent who effectively commands the attention of his or her children will have few discipline problems; furthermore, when the need for corrective discipline arises, any technique will serve just as well as any other.

Leadership is a fairly simple proposition.

The best leaders - corporate, political, military - are not necessarily the smartest people, or the most well-educated, or those who are the most socially adept. The best leaders are those who successfully act like they know what they are doing.

The operative word is act, mind you, because a truly effective leader is in touch with his own frailties. He is aware that he does not always know what he is doing. A leader must, of necessity, often shoot from the hip, fly blind, go with his instincts. As a consequence, a good leader doesn’t always make the best decision possible, but a good leader is always decisive, which inspires confidence.

And so it is with parents. Parenting is an act; it is a role one plays throughout the drama of the child-rearing years. The most effective parents are those who best carry it off. They act like they know what they’re doing. They do not act as if:

They need to consult with their children before making decision.

They need their children’s approval in order to follow through with decisions.

Their children’s protests concerning their decisions make any difference whatsoever.

Tacit to the management style of a parent-who-effectively-leads is the following message:

“I care deeply about you, my child. If the truth were known, I care more about you than I care for myself. But I do not care what you think about any decision I make.”

Parenting is replete with paradox, of which that’s a prime example.

In the broadest, most accurate sense of the term, discipline is the process of creating a disciple, a child who will follow your lead. A child will not “follow” - as in, obey - a parent who does not act like a leader. That’s a fact. And for that reason, I am convinced that nearly all disciple problems of the chronic sort are not child problems. They are parent problems, and unless and until the parents in question accept that, they will never get a grip, and their children may never completely grow up.

So, parents, do what all good leaders do: stuff your insecurities and self-doubts, chart a course, and stay the course.

In the final analysis, being slightly left of the “mark” is far better than having no direction at all.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond The Charlotte Observer