When A Word Goes Awry

Do you discipline your children? Why, or why not? 

It is important that we teach our children to practice discipline, and that we practice discipline with our children.  

Undisciplined children become undisciplined adults.


There are a great many parenting articles, books, and speakers teaching us to manage the growing up years of these amazing blessings, our children.  Most of them are currently in agreement that discipline of children is cruel and misleading.  


Is it possible that the very word discipline no longer means what it used to?


Take a look. 

The first set of definitions is from Webster's Dictionary 1828.  The second set is from the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary online.




DISCIPLINE, n. [L., to learn.]

1. Education; instruction; cultivation and improvement, comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals and manners, and due subordination to authority.

2. Instruction and government, comprehending the communication of knowledge and the regulation of practice; as military discipline, which includes instruction in manual exercise, evolutions and subordination.

3. Rule of government; method of regulating principles and practice; as the discipline prescribed for the church.

4. Subjection to laws, rules, order, precepts or regulations; as, the troops are under excellent discipline; the passions should be kept under strict discipline.

5. Correction; chastisement; punishment intended to correct crimes or errors; as the discipline of the strap.

6. In ecclesiastical affairs, the execution of the laws by which the church is governed, and infliction of the penalties enjoined against offenders, who profess the religion of Jesus Christ.

7. Chastisement or bodily punishment inflicted on a delinquent in the Romish Church; or that chastisement or external mortification which a religious person inflicts on himself.DISCIPLINE, v.t.

1. To instruct or educate; to inform the mind; to prepare by instructing in correct principles and habits; as, to discipline youth for a profession, or for future usefulness.

2. To instruct and govern; to teach rules and practice, and accustom to order and subordination; as, to discipline troops or an army.

3. To correct; to chastise; to punish.

4. To execute the laws of the church on offenders, with a view to bring them to repentance and reformation of life.

5. To advance and prepare by instruction.

 Definition of DISCIPLINE

1

: punishment

2

obsolete : instruction

3

: a field of study

4

: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

5

a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order b : orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior c : self-control

6

: a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity

Did anyone else notice that Mr. Webster chose the definition pertaining to punishment as number 5, while the new Mirriam-Webster authors and editors chose to use punishment as a single word defintion in the number 1 spot?

In fact, the definition in the new dictionary has been whittled down to as few words as possible, few of them having any positive meaning at all.

Which definition are your children learning at home, at school, at church?

Grumpy Wednesday

Jump out of bed.
Open doors and shout to get children up.
Slap together lunches and snacks
Throw some diapers and wipes in the diaper bag.
Change two diapers.
Get two littles dressed.
Get clothes out for one more little.
Help three bigs gather backpacks and shoes.
Put the dog out back.
Make sure all seven people have breakfast.
Woops, run back and slap on some deodorant and pat hair down so it doesn't look so scary.
Coach a little out from the corner of the couch and out to the van.
Jump in the van and drive to school.

This covers the first 20 mins. of the day here at The Zoo.

This is what happens when one little just can't sleep until 2 a.m.

I hit the snooze on the the 6:30 alarm, but it wasn't the snooze, it was the 'off' button.
At 8 a.m., the warm, happy sunshine wakes me, I stretch thinking I have a leisurely few minutes to begin Thursday morning. Deciding what to fix for breakfast, which chore I will tackle first, what fun thing we will do before heading off to classes---then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Wednesday. We have to be at school at 9 am, and we live half an hour out.

Fortunately, the  rest of the day has been uneventful. So far.

Angry Posts?

I've been writing blog entries, getting them polished and ready to post.

Then I read through them. I don't want to post them anymore.

The posts I wrote are angry. The voice in those letters is grouchy, complaining. Blaming. Bitter.

I don't want to be that person. Not for the whole world, and certainly not for my family.

Yes, of course there are circumstances that induce anger and frustration. The problem I am seeing is that I didn't let it go, or take care of it. I must have kept it stored away long enough to write several angry pieces.

There will be times when angry pieces are appropriate, but these were written with a bitter attitude.  Bitterness that inspires a meanness in my voice.  Gross.

I want to take the idea that began each written piece and rewrite in a way that resolves the anger. 

When there isn't a resolve for the circumstance, there can still be a resolve in my attitude, and sometimes anger is still the outcome - as long as it isn't bitter.

No Time to Grieve (2)

I left you last with the horror birthing a baby that I would never hold in my arms, into a toilet.

I now take you to the next day.

It was just that. Another day.

My girlfriend came over to make sure that I was resting. she put the children to the chores that they were trying to wiggle out of, she prepared dinner, and helped me put together a birthday cake for my husband.

You see, October 26th, the day I labored and bled and lost a blessed life to the sewers, was my husband's birthday.

Now, the date reserved in our family to specifically celebrate my husband's life will also be the date that I remember as filled with pain and grief.

And. Yes, there's more. And, my husband's uncle died that day. His uncle was that kind of uncle that all the kids love. The kind whose relationship didn't dim or end as the children grew. He was a good friend. A man who always had time to listen. A man for whom a surprise visit was never an imposition.

I hope Uncle Tony is rocking our baby.

No Time to Grieve

*Please note that details regarding this miscarriage are not withheld, and may be viewed as stark, grisly, and overwhelming.*

The last time I posted, I was expecting. My family was planning for a new baby. We were choosing names, deciding how to rearrange closets, planning the purchase of a new stroller, marking the calendar.
Now, when we flip the 2012 calendar over to May, we will see the due date marked, but we won't have a baby that is due on that date.
Our baby was born on October 26, 2011. She shouldn't have been. She had already died at 7 1/2 weeks gestation, but she stayed with me for another 6 weeks.
I had been to the OB, and and two ultra sounds confirmed that the baby was far too small, that there was not growth, and no heartbeat. I walked around for a month and a half knowing that the baby we had been planning for and had grown to love already, was dead.
For six weeks, the hormones that the baby's tissues and the pregnancy products put off rendered me still morning sick. My breasts were still tender, and constant hunger continued to plague me.
We told our children that the baby had died. They had many questions, good ones, too. They wanted to know if the baby was coming home soon, whey did the baby die, and would they get to see the baby. It helped to answer their questions. I didn't have a definite answer for all of them, but they accepted that, too.
I had a decision to make. I needed to decide if I would allow things to progress naturally, with out a defined time frame, take a pill that would induce labor, or have a D&C. None of those options sounded good to me.
So, I waited.
Then, I began to bleed. And I cried. I have miscarried before. Last time, that baby was only 3 or 4 weeks gestation, and we hadn't had time to adjust our emotions to expecting and loving a baby. That miscarriage was, physically, very easy. More like a heavy period and embarrassingly easy to dismiss. At least, I thought I had dismissed it.
Now, though, I called a friend, and told her that I was bleeding. She came to my house and picked me up, along with my little ones, and took us to her house.
Then, the surprise came. I started having contractions. They were hard, painful ones. Just like labor.
I bled and bled and bled. I'm not sure I have actually seen so much blood. Every time I had a baby in the hospital, the blood was cleaned up before I was up and around to see any of it. This time, there was no doctor, no nurse, no orderly.
So I labored, over a toilet. I already knew that the baby was too small for me to recognize. That even if I bled into a bucket and saved everything, I would never find it. So, I didn't. I bled into the toilet instead.
I flushed my baby down the toilet.
This slays me. This hurts, and disgusts me.

*more to come...*

I've said before, right on this very blog, that I refuse to be ruled by my circumstances.

I have taken a stand against circumstances. I would NOT allow things to happen TO me.

BUT - I missed out.

Circumstances do happen. Things often happen to people. That's part of life. We are not in control of the universe.

What I missed out on, possibly~probably, was...

GROWTH

Two friends have mentioned this recently.

One spoke of learning to love through even through the circumstances that robbed her son of what we call a full life and deprived her of the 'common' joys of motherhood.

The other spoke of Paul, and his prayers for the churches of his day. He did not pray that circumstances would change. He prayed that people would grow through those circumstances.

Things happen, and I can choose whether I act or re-act.

Even when crushed, I can choose whether to glorify my pain or my God.

In a Hurry

When you are buying hair conditioner, and you read the label and find the word conditioning, don't assume anything.

I shampooed my hair twice this morning.

If you see frizzy Cousin It traipsing about today, just wave and smile!