There is a book out called “Wasn’t Yesterday Better?” I haven’t read it, but I’m contemplating reading it. WAS yesterday ( fifty years ago) better than it is now? In some ways yes, and in some ways no, and I remember fifty years ago quite clearly, so I can judge.
Yesterday, mom stayed home. Today, mom goes to work and the family lives in a house four times the size of yesterday’s shot gun house with no air conditioning and someone sleeping in the living room. The family takes the kind of vacations yesterday’s family only drooled over. So which is preferable – day care and the extras, or mom being home?
Yesterday, children were free to play anywhere. From age four, I had the run of my two square mile island. Today children are prisoners of the dullness of video games and a once a week shot at the playground.
Yesterday, you got a shot if you were sick; today, you are mollycoddled and given ten days of bubble gum flavored medication.
Lots of things have changed, but the things that don’t change are the things that are important like discipline.
Discipline is one of the things that makes life in any family better, and good discipline never changes, never modernizes, never upgrades. No matter if the nine bedroom house with the nine baths is the up grade for the shack on a dilapidated corner in a worn out town, parents who enforce good discipline can live in either. Good, fair discipline is the model for anyone to live by, and that never changes.
Good discipline always begins at the top. A disciplined parent is an asset to any family. This is someone you can always depend on. A disciplined person is someone who is disciplined in all the parts of his or her life. I believe, yesterday, they called that – thought, word and deed and this never changes.
A disciplined person never makes excuses for why he or she can’t, didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t or won’t. That takes too much time and deprives others of their own discipline. A disciplined person is reliable – they always get the job done, done well, and you never hear about it, because by the time one job is done, they are busy doing the next one – even if it’s yours – and this could be found in any time you choose among all history.
A disciplined person is never late. They never break their promises; they are the last ones to leave and the first to arrive. A disciplined person is in as good a physical shape as they can be at any time. A disciplined person reads to understand, to know, and to be able to enter into conversation that makes a learning environment. This too never changes.
A disciplined person always pays bills on time, employees ( if applicable) on time, and never spends money they don’t have… I could go on and on about the disciplined adult, but the most important attribute of discipline is that it is a good example to children. It’s the thing that either makes or breaks a whole personality. The example of discipline is the harder way, surely, and those parents and teachers who demand discipline from a child are helping children to reject a culture that is beginning to love the failure of government handouts.
In a child’s life, the discipline comes slowly, but it comes routinely. We had one silly rule at our house years ago: Don’t fall in the river we eat at six. That meant think it through. Use your brain to duh – not fall into the river which is two blocks from our house, and we eat at six…know the time and be home early enough to wash your hands and eat with your family.
A disciplined child, just like a disciplined adult, rises at about the same time every day. That means they go to bed about the same time every night. This little rule helps children sleep well. There are, of course, special occasions, but for the most part, good bed routines help keep the body in good shape.
Disciplined people eat respectable meals. They don’t eat too much, too often, or the wrong things, meaning they don’t indulge in restaurant feasts five nights a week nor do they eat fast food as a mainstay, nor is the grocery cart filled with empty calories.
