The Soul of Discipline: The Simplicity Parenting Approach to Warm, Firm, and Calm Guidance- From Toddlers to Teens

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The disciplines] were different from slavery because they were not based on a relation of appropriation of bodies; indeed, the elegance of the discipline lay in the fact that it could dispense with this costly and violent relation by obtaining effects of utility at least as great. They were different, too, from ‘service’, which was a constant, total, massive, non-analytical, unlimited relation of domination, established in the form of the individual will of the master, his ‘caprice’. They were different from vassalage, which was a highly coded, but distant relation of submission, which bore less on the operations of the body than on the products of labour and the ritual marks of allegiance. Again, they were different from asceticism and from ‘disciplines’ of a monastic type, whose function was to obtain renunciations rather than increases of utility and which, although they involved obedience to others, had as their principal aim an increase of the mastery of each individual over his own body (137). My son, do not reject the discipline of Jehovah, and do not loathe his reproof, for those whom Jehovah loves he reproves, Just as a father does a son in whom he delights. Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country. The Governor, who is comfortably and firmly in charge—setting limits and making decisions for the early years up to around the age of eight parallel parking (sit beside playing child before transition, while doing something else with your hands, like food prep or knitting)

The meaning of earthly existence is not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prosperity, but in the development of the soul.” —Alexander SolzhenitsynThere is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men. Ask me not where I live and what I like to eat. Ask me what I am living for and what I think is keeping me from living fully for that.” —Thomas Merton Stop the “behavior modification” model. It makes children callous and insensitive to feeling. They don’t care anymore and will simply try to find the loophole. This approach also strips the parent of authority because all activity comes out of an external system of rewards and punishments. We want them to be guided by our own sense of authenticity, not some external reward.

You may never have thought much about disciplining yourself spiritually, however. But the same immutable laws that underlie all other pursuits in life, underlie the growth and development of your soul. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian (1520), M. Tranvik, trans. (Minneapolis: 2008), pp. 71-72 Telling rather than asking my child to do something. Example, instead of politely asking, "Can you get your coat on?", I politely tell him, "Go get your coat on." The author's theory here is that by asking, your child thinks he has some say in the matter, when he really doesn't because he needs to go get his coat on. So when he refuses and then you get angry, he gets confused. More often than not, now, my child will actually go get his coat on without me needing to tell him twice. Incarceration as a punishment has a couple of advantages: because it takes away liberty, which in theory belongs to everyone, it’s “egalitarian.” And because the length of sentences can be calibrated precisely according to all kinds of factors, prison is “fair.” We can be sure that offenders “pay their debt to society” down to the penny.Borne along by the omnipresence of the mechanisms of discipline, basing itself on all the carceral apparatuses, [judging] has become one of the major functions of our society. The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the ‘social worker’-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behaviour, his aptitudes, his achieve­ments (304). The Governor, who is comfortably and firmly in charge--setting limits and making decisions for the early years up to around the age of eight The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” —Richard J. Foster The Blue Book remained the official guide to military training and maneuvers until it was replaced in 1812. (U.S. Army photo) Kim Payne provides a useful model for choosing our parenting stance—Governor, Gardener, or Guide—depending on the situation. Most powerfully, Payne begins with the radical view that children are not disobedient but rather disoriented. The upshot of this shift in perspective is that discipline is about helping children orient themselves effectively, not about controlling or chastising.” —Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful Parenting

For an atheist or agnostic, their higher purpose may be to live a fully flourishing life: to be able to know oneself, enjoy healthy relationships, find meaning in work, and become a happier, more mindful, and all-around better friend, husband, father, and man. The Soul of Discipline: The Simplicity Parenting Approach to Warm, Firm, and Calm Guidance - From Toddlers to Teens by Kim John Payne, who is a school and family counsellor for more than thirty years, is a path-breaking resource book most parents with toddlers and teens will find extremely useful. The book is designed to provide children with well-defined boundaries and save parents from the feeling of free fall when confronted with challenging disciplinary situations. The ascetic Gotama … avoids watching dancing, singing, music and shows. He abstains from using garlands, perfumes, cosmetics, ornaments and adornments. … He refrains from running errands, from buying and selling. Throughout time, many philosophers, theologians, and writers have proposed a number of practices that might be considered spiritual disciplines. These include: Robert Oppenheimer, Letter to his brother Frank (12 March 1932), published in Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections (1995) edited by Alice Kimball Smith, p. 155

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Every age and degree of understanding should have its proper measure of discipline. With regard to boys and adolescents, therefore, or those who cannot understand the seriousness of the penalty of excommunication, whenever such as these are delinquent let them be subjected to severe fasts or brought to terms by harsh beatings, that they may be cured.

Judges don’t desire to punish. Their sentences are meant to correct and even cure the criminal. How nice of them! Aristotle once wrote “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit…so then if we repeatedly practice high standards and discipline, and it is the creation of those habits that enable us to defeat a determined and audacious enemy.” It is fitting in many respects to discuss standards and discipline in our Army today. The intention here is to discuss this topic briefly from a chronological perspective specifically highlighting how standards and discipline have become a hallmark of our organization as an Army and how they have evolved over the years during the conduct of multiple wars and conflicts resulting in the very foundation that we stand upon both today and into tomorrow. I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity, and a certain small but precious measure of the freedom from the accidents of incarnation, and charity, and that detachment which preserves the world which it renounces. I believe that through discipline we can learn to preserve what is essential to our happiness in more and more adverse circumstances, and to abandon with simplicity what would else have seemed to us indispensable; that we come a little to see the world without the gross distortion of personal desire, and in seeing it so, accept more easily our earthly privation and its earthly horror — But because I believe that the reward of discipline is greater than its immediate objective, I would not have you think that discipline without objective is possible: in its nature discipline involves the subjection of the soul to some perhaps minor end; and that end must be real, if the discipline is not to be factitious. Therefore I think that all things which evoke discipline: study, and our duties to men and to the commonwealth, war, and personal hardship, and even the need for subsistence, ought to be greeted by us with profound gratitude, for only through them can we attain to the least detachment; and only so can we know peace.Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.” —Marcus Aurelius This week’s reading is Discipline and Punish, by noted ray of sunshine Michel Foucault. The book begins with a memorably graphic torture scene that pretty well sets the tone for what follows. Establishing and enforcing standards and discipline is the key to an organization's overall success and should be treated in such a way that every member of the organization understands those standards and that they are committed individually and collectively to those standards. If you can find an organization which is highly successful in combat, chances are they are one that has high standards and have strong enforcement of discipline at every level. For the soul to strengthen, it has to be trained in a consistent, deliberate way. Just like your physical muscles, it needs something to push against, it needs resistance. If you really want your spirit to be able to soar to adventurous heights and explore the profoundest of depths, if you really want it to possess power — if you really want it to be free — it paradoxically needs some structure. It needs discipline. How Should I Approach the Spiritual Disciplines? If you’re nagged by a restless feeling that there must be more to life than your day-to-day existence, the spiritual disciplines are for you.