With the change in parental roles in our house, came a change in attitudes, routines, and habits. None of us were prepared for all of the changes, and all of the new stress that came along with it. This also included how to handle aggressive and undesirable behavior from the children. We knew that there would be some acting out, some of that “pushing the boundaries” jazz, and all that other junk, but we did not have any knowledge of how to decide if and how to intervene or administer punishment.

The question I throw out in this post today is when does manipulation turn into a mental mind game with negative consequence? Is manipulation of a situation or of the children’s thinking at the time just a straight up bad idea? Or is there a line to draw between okay and too much?

It is not easy to discipline your own child. You can read as many books as you want but depending on the temperament of your child, not every discipline/punishment trick will work. Depending on the temperament of the child you have to be creative and try new things – one size definitely does not fit all.

When you’re a father you censor yourself. You get just as angry with a child but you don’t want to say, “What the filth and foul and I’ll filth and foul, filth and foul and, yeah, ya filth and foul face, and I’ll filth and foul, foul, filth!” You don’t want to say that to [...]

Parenting styles and decisions are some of the toughest issues to deal with when the kids get together but by being humble and having a conversation you can go a long way to making sure that the kids get a long as well as the parents.