If you can't solve it, it's not a problem - it's reality.

We need to encourage members of this next generation to become all that they can become, not try to force them to become what we want them to become. . . . You and I can't even begin to dream the dreams this next generation is going to dream, or answer the questions that will be put to them.

Compliant children are very easily led when they are young, because they thrive on approval and pleasing adults. They are just aseasily led in their teen years, because they still seek the same two things: approval and the pleasing their peers. Strong-willed children are never easily led by anybody--not by you, but also not by their peers. So celebrate your child's strength of will throughout the early years...and know that the independent thinking you are fostering will serve him well in the critical years to come.

When we use punishment, our children are robbed of the opportunity to develop their own inner discipline-the ability to act with integrity, wisdom, compassion, and mercy when there is no external force holding them accountable for what they do.

There is no problem so great it cannot be solved.

Encouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, You are listened to, You are cared for, You are very important to me

Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children's learning--to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline--an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child's learning and leave a child's dignity intact cannot be called discipline--it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.