Your Top Parenting Questions Answered

Do you wish you could ask a Christian homeschooling psychologist a parenting question? This is The Homeschool Sanity Show, the episode where I answer the most common parenting questions I receive.

Hey, homeschoolers! Most of the questions I've received in my personal and professional life center around parenting. As a parent myself, I understand that. We live in an age that has parents terrified of making mistakes and being blamed for any and everything that can go wrong in their children's lives. Apart from that fear, we have the earnest desire to love and teach our children well.

While I didn't begin this podcast or my time as a speaker thinking I would focus on parenting, I have found that I enjoy answering these questions. My prayer is that you'll have some of your questions answered in this episode. If you have other questions, please don't hesitate to send them my way via email ([email protected]) or on social media messages (@homeschoolsanity). I am happy to respond individually.

So, let's jump in to six of the most popular questions I've answered over the years.

#1 Am I disciplining the right way?

This question comes after an explanation of a child's problem behavior and a description of what the parent has done to address it that has improved the behavior.

The short answer to this question is YES. If you are responding to a child's behavior problem in a way that is working, albeit imperfectly, then yes, you are disciplining the right way. I haven't had to say no to this because no parent has ever described an abusive response with this question and no parent has said, "And I just ignore the problem behavior."

The other reason my answer is yes is because you're the authority on whether or not a disciplinary approach is working and appropriate for your family. I once fell for the lie that I couldn't be trusted to know the best approach for each of my kids, just as I thought I couldn't be trusted to know the best way to homeschool my kids. I thought I needed an expert to tell me. I didn't and you don't. If what you're doing is working and it feels right to you, continue on. If it's making things worse or you feel guilty about it, try something new.

#2 How can I discipline when my spouse isn't on board?

The truth is most parents don't phrase this in the form of a question. They say, "I CAN'T discipline because my spouse isn't on board." My answer is that it's ideal to have you and your spouse on the same page with discipline. But it isn't necessary for you to discipline in a way that works and feels good to you. Any time our kids aren't with us and under our authority, they will likely be dealing with a different disciplinary approach. Outside teachers, coaches, grandparents, babysitters, and divorced or separated parents are probably not going to be on the same page with discipline. Of course, that doesn't mean we throw up are hands in despair and drop discipline entirely.

It is always worthwhile to discuss discipline with your spouse when you have different ideas about how to approach it. But in these discussions our number one focus has to be humility. That is true even when your spouse is making what you think are obvious mistakes. Let's consider a common scenario. You want to calmly use specific consequences for misbehavior, but when the kids act out, your husband yells instead. Instead of lecturing your husband about the negative effects of yelling and his need for self-control, dig deeper during a quiet discussion. Find out what is driving his frustration.

It's possible it has little to do with the kids' behavior.