Love Is Everything

When we love something it is of value to us, and when something is of value to us we spend time with it, time enjoying it and time taking care of it.

So it is when we love our children; we spend time admiring them and caring for them. We give them our time.

Good discipline requires time. When we have no time to give our children, or no time that we are willing to give, we don’t even observe them closely enough to become aware of when their need for our disciplinary assistance is expressed subtly.

The parents who devote time to their children will perceive in them subtle needs for discipline, to which they will respond with gentle urging or reprimand or structure or praise , administered with thoughtfulness and care. They will observe how their children eat cake, how they study, when they tell subtle falsehoods, when they run away from problems rather than face them. They will take the time to make these minor corrections and adjustments, listening to their children, responding to them, tightening a little here, loosening a little there, giving them little lectures, little stories, little hugs and kisses, little admonishments, little pats on the back.

Notes from “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck, M.D.