Marsha's Musings: Child Discipline

Recently a friend confided in me that her child acted like nothing she did in the way of consequences for her abuse of privileges mattered.  She was frustrated because she felt there was nothing she could do to change the child's behavior.

It dawned on me later as I thought on this problem that my kids did the same thing.  I quickly called her back and told her that she needed to persevere with the consequences because this was psychological warfare.  The kids acted as if the consequences never made any difference because they were trying to wear us down so we would give up giving consequences or keep us running round and round Robin Hood's barn trying new and different consequences until we finally ran out of ideas and gave up.  

My own kids tried this on us and after persevering long enough, pretty soon they got the picture that they were not going to wear us down and they quit trying it.

I just thought maybe if there are those of you out there having issues like this, this might be of some help and encouragement to you.