The Smart Discipline

Intelligent discipline can be defined as one that allows people to adjust themselves to healthy guidelines and norms, in a conscious way and based on personal and collective growth.

It is a type of discipline that is reasonably transmitted and separates from permissive and authoritarian education.

The consequences of a permissive education are really harmful, as much or more than those of an authoritarian education.

Evidence indicates that if children and youth do not learn to adjust to discipline, they have great difficulty building character and achieving goals in their lives.

Education without discipline gives rise to very defined personality traits: irresponsibility, rebellion, disregard, selfishness, transgression and immaturity. In turn, education with excessive discipline can produce submissive, fearful and insecure people as a result.

The worst case scenario is the one that combines the two approaches: permissiveness and authoritarianism alternate.

This is the typical case of parents who go too far in punishing, or enforcing a rule, to such an extent that they humiliate or hurt their children. Then they feel guilty about what they did and then become permissive in other aspects to alleviate their regret.

permissive education and authoritarian education

Before talking in detail about intelligent discipline, it is important to be clear about the traits that define permissive and authoritarian education.

The main features of permissive education are as follows:

• It does not formulate clear and defined rules.
• Want to please the child or the teenager.
• Justifies children’s mistakes and failures.
• Seeks to satisfy your every whim.
• The requirements are very basic, nothing that really challenges the child.
• Punishments and sanctions are forgiven or negotiated.
• The child is allowed to make decisions at his own discretion.
• Little importance to meeting schedules, order and achievement of goals.
• Excessive freedom: the child must learn on his own from his mistakes.

Meanwhile, the main features of authoritarian education are:

• Rules are imposed without explanations or arguments.
• Any violation of the rules is heavily punished, regardless of the severity level.
• It is intended to exercise and maintain absolute control over the child’s life.

• Punishments are very severe and often include physical and/or psychological aggression.
• There is an overemphasis on order.
• The child does not receive stimuli or gestures of recognition for their achievements.
• The child’s opinion is not recognized or considered to the point of having any value.

Permissive upbringing usually follows the parents’ disinterest or lack of personality. Authoritarian parenting is often a response to a parent’s trauma or excessive anxiety and fear.

Towards a smart discipline

Intelligent discipline is defined as one that is capable of transmitting values ​​to children, helping them to recognize limits and, with this, learn to renounce impossible desires.

Human beings build many fantasies in life around their desires. Deep inside each one of us is a hopeless narcissist who wants to be at the center of everything. There is also an egoist who wants everything for himself. And a little dictator who wants to get what he wants no matter if he has to step on top of others to get it.

Basically, what discipline does is introduce a series of small frustrations. By accepting these limits, people are learning that they are not alone in the world and that they cannot get everything they want.

This learning, in turn, allows us to develop strategies to adapt to the world. This implies the exercise of reason and tolerance of frustration. In other words, discipline teaches us to put our feet on the ground.

Clarity and consistency in the practice of the rules allow us to acquire a solid reality principle. This, over time, translates into self-assurance and a sense of appreciation for others.

Smart discipline allows us to set goals and do what is possible and necessary to reach them. With that, we already have a healthy emotional baggage that will certainly allow us to have fewer problems and more achievements in life.

Some steps to implement smart discipline are:

• Setting limits before rules.
• Offer well-defined options in applying the rules.
• Involve the child when establishing a new rule, making him see that his opinion counts, but that it is not the definitive one.
• Have clear the values ​​we intend to transmit.
• Encourage the development of self-control.
• Explain in detail why some behaviors irritate adults and others.
• Recognize the child when he does good deeds and right things.
• Do not come into conflict with disciplinary models within the family.

• Act immediately in the face of bad behavior, without leaving it for later.
• Clearly establish what the sanctions are for breaking a rule and complying with what has been announced.

Intelligent discipline makes people free and aware. Individuals who are capable of getting the best out of themselves and who respect that old maxim that is the basis for daily coexistence: “Your rights end where those of your fellow men begin.”