0007: Hug children after you discipline them.

I have not always been a hugging person. It’s not that I come from a family that didn’t show affection for one another – every night my parents would read books and sing songs with my sister and me before bed. We would, and still do, say, “I love you” and hug and kiss (though now on the cheek) when we see each other.

In college, my friends were huggers. I didn’t really understand why after spending an afternoon or evening with one of them, who I knew I would see in just another day or two, needed a hug. That was until my friends, and subsequently I, started moving away. I realized there is nothing more comforting than a hug – that little embrace that reminds you that person, that relationship, is someone or something to hold closely.

We should remember this – the act of hugging – when we discipline.

When we discipline, we raise our voices, we criticize, and more times than not, we overreact. We take a negative situation, action, or experience, try to correct it, and often make it worse, leaving the discipline receiver feeling down and sometimes emotionally destroyed.

But does discipline always have to be negative? Can we learn from being disciplined or disciplining? Why not take the negative situation, that disciplining moment, and make it a learning experience, a moment to remind ourselves that while things don’t always go smoothly or without discipline, it’s the people in our lives that will make any situation better.

We hug each other when we are happy and we hug each other in sadness or times of need. But after we have or have been disciplined, a hug is more important than ever. Understand the situation, the issue, or action, learn from it, and then hug it out. We should use that hug to remind ourselves and the other party involved that while things don’t always go right, the other person is still important to us and someone we want to keep close. Because it is these people that ultimately will pick us up and get us back on your feet.