My son threw a stuffed animal.

It wasn't a huge deal.

He was frustrated. He reacted. And almost immediately, he knew he'd done something he shouldn't have done.

You could see it on his face.

And in that moment, there wasn't much punishment I could have given him that would have felt worse than what he was already feeling.

I mentioned that during my conversation with counselor and parent coach Dan Peterson, and he said something that stuck with me:

That's the goal.

We discipline our kids when they're young so they can become self-disciplined as they get older.

That seems kind of obvious when you say it out loud.

But I'm not sure we always parent like that. I know I don't.

A lot of discipline focuses on what happens after a kid does something wrong.

What consequence should there be?

What privilege should they lose?

What punishment will make sure they don't do it again?

Dan compared it to a referee teaching young kids to play basketball.

A five-year-old dribbles toward the sideline and steps out of bounds.

Whistle.

Turnover.

A few minutes later, he does it again.

Whistle.

Eventually, he starts noticing the line himself.

He approaches it and stops before stepping over it.

The boundary hasn't changed.

The kid has.

That's what we're trying to do as parents.

When our kids are little, we're constantly blowing the whistle.

But hopefully, over time, they begin hearing it before we blow it.

Dan used learning to read as another example.

When a child mispronounces a word, we don't immediately start looking for an appropriate consequence.

We help him sound it out.

Try again…and again.

Eventually, he recognizes the word without our help.

We understand that he's learning a skill.

Maybe behavior isn't always that different.

Patience is a skill.

Self-control is a skill.

Managing frustration is a skill.

Recognizing you've hurt someone and making it right is a skill.

Kids aren't born knowing how to do those things any more than they're born knowing how to read.

They have to practice.

And they're going to get them wrong while they're learning.

Our job isn't to make every mistake hurt enough that they'll never make it again.

It's to keep teaching until they can recognize the boundary without us.

Until one day the whistle stays quiet.

Because they don't need us to blow it anymore.

If you missed my conversation with Dan Peterson, you can watch the full interview here.

Dan has spent nearly 30 years working with kids and families, and we talk about what he's learned along the way—especially that sometimes the kid you're trying to change isn't the only person who needs to change.

We talk about letting go of the child you imagined, becoming the parent your child actually needs, discipline versus punishment, raising different kids differently, technology, and what fathers offer their children that we sometimes underestimate.

We also get into how our kids have a way of exposing the parts of ourselves that still need a little work.

And while you're there, please subscribe to the Campfire Gentleman YouTube channel so my son will quit bothering me about it.

He's still very concerned about our subscriber count. (How long am I going to beat this dead horse? Stay tuned and find out.)

Until next time—
🔥Keep the fires burning,
— Clay

P.S. I’d rather grow Campfire Gentleman through real connections than algorithms.
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