DISCIPLINE

My 3 year old son loves playing video games. First person shooter games to be exact. Any game that allows him to run around and shoot someone, or something (mainly zombies), will keep him happily occupied for hours. I haven't decided yet, whether or not his love for video games is a good thing or bad a bad thing. I guess in one way it's actually a pretty good thing, considering the fact that he is 3 years old and can operate a video game controller that is way too big for his hands. It's kinda like playing basketball with the ball being the size of a beach ball. He even has enough in game awareness to play multiplayer matches online with adults. Whom he sometimes does just as well as, or occasionally better than. Sometimes, getting him to turn off Call of duty, Modern Warfare 2, can be a bit of a challenge. So much that it gets him into touble.

His "love of the game" is quite useful when it comes to disciplining him. When he gets into trouble, we, as in, me or his mother, don't allow him to play Xbox for a while. When this happens it's like putting him in a torture device. You might as well chain him to a metal boxspring(you know, the thing that goes under the mattress on a bed from back in the day) and apply electricity. He will try to negotiate with you, get mad at you and tell you he is not your buddy, or even tell you he is not your baby. Finally, after all that don't work, he will cry for a while, trying his best to make you feel horrible. Sometimes it works, I will give in every now and then, but it usually doesn't take long when he works his magic on mom. If i'm not around he usually gets what he wants.

That's the thing about disciplining yor kids, if you don't work together you will have a long, hard struggle. At a very young age children can pick up on things like that. If they see they can get their way with one parent that's who they will go to when they are in trouble, or when they want something. If they ask one parent to allow them to do something and the answer is no, then they will go to the other parent and try to get the answer they want. It works out more often than one would think. And that's why parents have to be on the same page and communicate when it comes to disciplining their children. Because if you are not the kids will use it to their advantage.

There are many ways to discipline kids. Many people have different views on discpline. Some believe that some types work better than others, some believe that some types just cause worse problems in the future of the child. Both of these thoughts may be true, and they may not. There are many people in the world that think they know what is best for "your child". But the true fact of the matter is that all kids are different and do not react the same to certain kinds of discipline. Some kids may not care if they don't get to watch t.v., just as some may not care if they don't get to play videp games. Some kids may not care if they get to go outside or not, and some might rather take a whipping than not be able to talk on the phone. It depends on the child, nothing more.

With all the different ways to discipline your child the one thing that msut happen is cooperation and support from both parents. If the parents don't work together and stay consistent with the punishment, whatever it may be, it will not have the effect that it needs to have.