We parents often think of discipline in starkly negative terms: "Keeping the Lid on", "A necessary evil", "punishment", etc. But while discipline has its unpleasant aspects, it really is a positive thing.
The word discipline comes from the same Latin word as "disciple" or an academic "discipline". It refers to study and learning or to one who studies and learns from another (a "disciple").
Your discipline of your children refers first and foremost to your efforts to teach them and help them learn how to live successfully as independent, self-disciplined adults. Discipline is first of all the education and nurture of children.
Our job as parents is to help our children learn how to live succesfully. The way we do that most effectively is to a) model that kind of living for them to see and imitate and b) help them practice making choices about how to live (and accepting the consequences, good or bad). Practice makes perfect, but it does take time (and failures). That's why it's called "practice".
Our children are our disciples and we, their parents, "disciple" them in succssful living. We don't need to prove any points exept that we love them and intend to help them grow up to be successful adults. Our goal is not to "win" over our children but to win our children over to wise and successful living.
When we look at discipline as "apprenticing" or "discipling" our children for successful living, it helps us see family discipline in a much more positive light. It really isn't so bad, after all.
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