It is not unusual for parents to discipline their children based on their own fears. Enjoy my latest Ask Susie G. where I tackle the topic, how fear affects discipline.

Ask Susie G.

Dear Susie,

It’s official, I have taken everything away from my 15-year-old son, EVERYTHING, and nothing has changed. He just sits in his room doing nothing and I still can’t get him to do his homework, clean his room or get ready for school. Inevitably, I end up giving everything back thinking he will change, but he never does. I end up doing everything for him because I am afraid he is going to flunk out or get kicked out of school! My husband thinks I am way too soft on him and do way too much for him, but I don’t want to think of the alternative. I would love any help you could give me!

 From,

One Stressed Out Mom

My Response:

Dear One Stressed Out Mom,

Your story is one I hear often. It is not unusual for a parent to call me in crisis because their child has made a mistake and nothing the parent does seems to change the situation.  You are definitely not alone! Fear affects our discipline.

In your letter you said, “…but I don’t want to think of the alternative.” I am going to challenge you to do just that. When we do everything for our children because we fear the natural consequences: bad grades, getting benched or getting kicked out of school, we are looking at it through the wrong lenses.

When we do everything for our children our motivation should not be fearing the immediate consequences of their failures, our fear should be what our children are going to do when they are on their own and mom has done everything for them. This is much scarier than getting bad grades, getting benched or getting kicked out of school while they are under your roof.

But, let’s look even deeper. If we are going to analyze this we must look at our own insecurities and how fear affects discipline. It is not necessarily our fear that they will get bad grades, get benched or get kicked out of school, it is sometimes deeper than that. The first layer of fear is that they won’t get into their (or your) school of choice. If we go one layer deeper, the fear is they will look bad. One more layer, we will look bad. And finally, we have failed as a parent. Ouch!

But we must remember, our children’s mistakes are not our failures. We fail are when we try and fix their mistakes.

We must put our insecurities to the side for a moment and focus on what our children need to be taught. We must try to take off our emotional hat and putting on our teaching one. It is a must in order to help our children become confident, respectful and responsible adults.

So now, let’s take this back to your original question. You are absolutely right, taking everything away does not work! Expect your son to do his work and then earn privileges: phone time, computer time, Xbox time, friend time, etc. If he doesn’t do what is expected, he doesn’t earn privileges for the day. Start with a clean slate the next day and try again.

While this is one tip that can help, there is so much more! It is not something that can be learned in one article, one day or even one week. You must unlearn old patterns and learn new tools. This takes time but it is doable. For more parenting read my book, The Parenting Backpack.

Thanks for reaching out,

Susie G.