Discipline and Permissiveness
Alvin Rosenfeld MD1
Dorothy Levine MD2
1 Director of Psychiatric Services, Jewish Child Care Association of New York, 575 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10022, and Senior Research Scholar, Elbenwood Center for the Study of Family as Educator, Columbia University Teachers College, New York
2 Clinical Instructor in Pediatrics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, and partner, Klenk and Levine Pediatrics Practice, Stamford, CT.
Discipline is education, not punishment. Be a good example to your children.
Numerous factors determine the child-rearing style individual parents select. Other than the overtly abusive, hostile, on grossly inconsistent style, no empirical research has shown some style of rearing to cause children serious damage or to be vastly superior. Much depends on the type of person the parents hope to rear.
Avoid the need to punish whenever possible. Reasonable limits and parental warmth and consistency are helpful to the child.
Although love may not be enough to enable a child to grow well, when it is combined with the child's day-to-day experience with an orderly adult who treats him or her warmly and fairly, the child will over the years, all by him or herself, with no great special effort from the parents, imitate that parents' behavior and incorporate their standards.
