One of the most difficult aspects of raising a child is discipline. Parents frequently have different styles of raising their children and some use different methods to correct poor behavior. A typical question is who should be the disciplinarian in our home? The answer in families where the biological parents of a child are still together is that both parents should provide discipline. However, many times individuals have children and choose to remarry after a divorce. Then, the question of who disciplines the children in the home can really become cloudy and hard to manage.

The best answer for who disciplines within the home when there are step parents involved is that the biological parent disciplines his/her biological child. Some people marry and bring children into the marriage on both sides. This means the biological parent should control their childrens behavior. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, children will respond to their biological parents. But, when a step parent tries to discipline all it does is breed even worse behavior. At least in many cases. This is because the step parent is new and kids wonder why this person thinks they can boss them around anyway. The result is that kids push the limit with step parents just to see how far they can go. The best weapon the step parent has is to tell the child to stop behaving in a certain way and that his biological parent will take care of disciplining him.

Once the biological parent is aware there is a problem then it is important to support and back up the spouse i.e. step parent. When a biological parent takes the childs side against the spouses then this gives the child ammunition to behave poorly all the time. It is incredibly important for children to see the biological parent and new step parent as a united front even if the discipline is coming from the biological parent. This will show kids they have no room to manipulate or play one parent off the other. Also, it will help the family grow and become just that. Within two years a step parent can begin disciplining in some very basic ways. But at first, the disciplinarian should always be the biological parent.

Posted in Parenting

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