Quotations From LAWRENCE BALTER

A child who fears excessive retaliation for even minor offenses will learn very early on that to lie is to protect himself.... If your child intuits that you will react very punitively to his wrongdoing, he may be tempted to lie and may become, as time goes on, a habitual liar.

Discipline isn't just punishing, forcing compliance or stamping out bad behavior. Rather, discipline has to do with teaching proper deportment, caring about others, controlling oneself and putting someone else's wishes before one's own when the occasion calls for it.

If the issue doesn't matter a whole lot, just drop it. You don't have to win every fight ... and you will not have lost any of your authority by giving in when it doesn't matter very much.

Kids need to see that their parents may not always be of the same mind, that people who differ, even angrily, can continue in a loving relationship,... that it's okay to argue with a loved one, and that one can do so without risking the love of the other person.

The extent to which a parent is able to see a child's world through that child's eyes depends very much on the parent's ability to appreciate the differences between herself and her child and to respect those differences. Your own children need you to accept them for who they are, not who you would like them to be.

You want to prepare your child to think as he gets older. You want him to be critical in his judgments. Teaching a child, by your example, that there's never any room for negotiating or making choices in life may suggest that you expect blind obedience—but it won't help him in the long run to be discriminating in choices and thinking.