Today I met with a couple of fellow coaches. We were getting ready for the upcoming season. At one point our conversation turned to discipline. In yesterday's blog I talked about teaching our kids self control (or self-discipline) rather than trying to teach them self esteem. Training our football team to be self-disciplined requires the coaches to be consistent, to expect the players to be disciplined, and to have consequences when they aren't. The truth is, the players are the easy part. The hard part is for us coaches to be "disciplined" enough to maintain a high level of expectation. It's easy to relax, to get tired, to give up, when often times we are close to a breakthrough with our team.

The same can be said when teaching our own kids self control. The kids are the easy part. If we will stay encouraged, not give up, continue to expect great things from them, they learn quickly. The reality is sometimes life gets us down, or we listen to the "experts" tell us kids can't be self controlled, or we simply give up. Don't give up. Stay consistent. With your toddler begin speaking words of life into him. Encourage him to get control of himself when he is upset. With your elementary school child, expect her to have enough self control to obey you for an hour when you leave her with someone else. With your teenager, believe enough in their ability to have self control to expect them to clean their room and do their homework (OK we're still working on that one!). Again, our kids will respond, we are the ones that don't believe they are capable.

We get what we parent! If we train them and expect them to have self control they will.