Single Parent Dad

As kids, my brother, sister and I were smacked with a hair brush till it broke.

My mum even threatened us with a sjambok, a rhino’s tail (we lived in Africa till I was three.) It was rarely used, if ever, but it looked the part.
I guess that’s one way to get your kids to do what you want.

I even have a memory of being smacked one time for doing nothing wrong. It was a weekend. Dad worked all week in London and all weekend in the garden. Through the window he saw my siblings fighting inside. He lost his temper, and employing the shoot-first-ask-questions-later school of parenting, he stormed in and smacked us all.

Discipline was always a dirty word for me. Our parent’s attempts at discipline didn’t work. Consequently, I’ve had little to no relationship with my parents through the years. Theirs was what I call lazy parenting, and they suffered for it. We all did.

My daughter (left)

I am a single parent. I got three kids, 2 boys and a girl and a cat called Kylie, after the Aussie singer.

For me my kids are my teachers, my foundation, my friends even, perhaps. I focus on their strong points and love them utterly. At times when they’re rude and unpleasant it isn’t easy.

If imposed discipline doesn’t work we’re left with sanctions and rewards to stop kids behaving in negative ways and to motivate them to behave in positive ways.

My own arsenal of parental sanctions includes grounding, confiscating mobile phones (heresy!), docking pocket money, not supplying pudding (often the most effective). But the truth is I threaten these and almost never carry them out. I find talking to them and trying to make them understand the situation and reflect on it the most effective.

I say ‘my teachers my foundations my friends’. Teachers’ insofar as I’ve had to look into myself and change up a gear. I was a lot angrier before my kids taught me how not to be. And anger is so unfashionable these days! They weren’t consciously teaching me but it was their influence that changed me.

‘Foundations’- life was rocky before them. I’ve had to simplify things to stabilize.

‘Friends’. I have many friends. Many friends for many things. I know people who say, ‘Be like your best friend to your kids’. But I don’t guide my best friends through the minefield that is life. This said, I’m much more on my kids’ levels than my parents were with me. I hope one day my kids will become those kind of friends who will remain close, real, and permanent.

Parenting is hard. We are not their keepers. They may have our genes but not our minds, our wills and ambitions. They are not another chance to get life right, nor are they playgrounds for our fears and aspirations. We cannot control them so let’s try and understand them, and love them through thick and thin.