Why OJT is bad for your Child

In the working world, OJT is the acronym for “On the Job Training”. Just about every industry has a version of it: construction, clerical, service etc. The problem with OJT in the martial arts world is that it means that you are figuring out what do to in what could be a life-threatening situation.

How Americans improved martial arts:

Firms and certain groups in Southeast Asia are notorious for, taking an American idea, improving it, and making it uniquely theirs: the car, the computer, the television, washing machines, etc. Martial arts is the reverse. It is an industry that was invented by Asians and was dramatically improved by Americans. Sparring, tournaments, academic excellence, discipline all of these are American creations that improved martial arts.

When martial arts were invented in was taught as a form of exercise to monks that lived in the Shaolin Monastery. There was no militaristic discipline at the time. Over time the Monastery was burned down and the Monks scattered to places like the Japanese mainland, Korea, and the Island of Okinawa. At first, martial arts were taught to individuals in secret at night, then over a period of time groups started being trained. In the 1800s Gichin Funakoshi created the first martial arts school; a style of martial arts he named “Shotokan Karate which is still practiced today. Though there were other formidable originators of their own form of martial arts: Mas Oyama, Gogen Yamagugi (Who’s style I was originally trained in by one of his disciples in the 60”s.)  Funakoshi ‘s system was the first to reach international fame so he is credited as the first school for profit originator.

After World War II with the reconstruction of Japan underway, American soldiers began to study and practice martial arts. It was the American soldier that put the “martial” in martial arts. The term “Martial Art” literally means military way. After the infusion of “Martial” influence “Martial Artist” in general became a lot more dangerous because discipline, which is the cornerstone of the military, is the thing that allows a person to override emotions like fear and stand fast in the face of danger; before its induction into training ordinary farmers and villagers would simply run away when faced with a life-threatening situation as in the case of the Monks of the Shaolin Temple.

The Revolutionaries:

 Robert Trias - (The man who put the “Martial” in “Martial Arts”)

In the 50’s“Martial Arts” pioneer Robert Tria opened the first professionally run “Martial Arts” school in America; it taught a karate based style known as “Shuri – Ryu, an eclectic style with roots in Chinese Kung-fu. Trias served in the United States Naval Reserves in World WarII and is credited as being the first one to teach civilians self -  defense techniques with high levels of military discipline, in effect putting the “Martial” in “Martial Arts”.  Trias understood that all the self – defense skills in the world were useless if one did not have the discipline to control one's emotions.

Ed Parker – (The creator of tournaments)

Soon after Trias opened his school, Hawaiian born Edmund Parker open his studio in Honolulu. Parker created a style of “Martial Arts” known as American Kenpo another eclectic style based on Chinese Kung fu. Though Parker incorporated Trias ideology of teaching self – defense with military discipline he promoted the notion that “Martial Arts” was flawed because it based too much of its teaching on theory and conjecture. He began to invite open-minded owners of schools to get together and compete against one another to get an idea of how “Martial Arts” would really work in as close to a real-life situation as was possible; thus tournaments were born.  His events were named “The Long Beach Internationals” and were some of the most successful tournaments of their time. Most of his events had thousands of competitors.

 Jhoon Rhee - (The Father of American Tae Kwon Do)

 Jhoon Rhee, a Korean born practitioner of Tae Kwon Do who immigrated to America took Parker’s idea further and invented foot and hand pads made out of foam rubber that allowed sparring participants to make contact while fighting. Once students were allowed to make contact they began to modify the use of techniques so that they landed with maximum effectiveness. Gone when the days of theoretical hyperbole, in came the days of facts based application. These three individuals revolutionized the “Martial Arts” profoundly by making its use in a real-life situation guaranteed to be a success.

It took a very long time for ”Martial Arts” to get where we are today, in fact, centuries. If not for the hard work and determination of a few forward-thinking individuals martial artists might still have to wait until they were confronted with situations that could have catastrophic endings if something when wrong before they knew if what they were taught really works.

A TRUE STORY, AND LEARNING LESSON

I received my first black belt in Japanese Goju in 1969. It was a system of karate that proclaimed that the teachings were too dangerous for students to spar one another and that it should only be used in real life. When I joined the Army I was studying Northern Style Kung Fu, a style that also prohibited sparring. Both systems because of their “ inherent danger” prohibited the association with other systems and discouraged tournament participation.

 In 1970, as a private in the United States Army, I was sent to Fort Leonard wood Missouri for Advanced Individual Training. Within a month I had had several racially charged verbal assaults hurled at me but never a fistfight. One night my friend and I (a Hispanic American) went to the base night club to have some fun.  We were sitting listening to the band when the bartender came over and handed me a free glass of beer (a practice that he did eight times). I remember saying to my friend that things were not that bad here and that maybe I had gotten people wrong. Most of the beer was drank by my friend; though I was keeping my own steady pace I drank a lot less than him. (I always had a fear of getting drunk in public because, where I grew up people who were drunk walking the street usually got beaten and robbed.)

After about, the eighth beer was consumed the bartender came back, but this time he wasn’t carrying a glass of beer he was carrying a club. He began shouting at me that I was being drunk and unruly and that he wasn’t going to tolerate that kind of behavior in his place. Slightly bewildered because all that I was doing was sitting there, in a second or two I realized what was happening. (His game was to get me drunk, accuse me of being disorderly, and the beat me up.) I stepped away from him and calmly stated that I was not drunk and that I was definitely not being disorderly. He would have none of it and moved in and began to physically attack me, pushing me and threatening to hit me with the club. The other soldiers around me began to shout at him that he was wrong and that I did not do what he was saying. Suddenly, and quite without thinking, I shouted, “this is a setup, you purposely tried to get me drunk so that you could beat me with that club. If you’re so F- - king tough drop the club and let’s go outside.

He took me up on my offer. Outside, in front of the bar, we squared off (my friend was holding my coat, and a crowd surrounded us). After a moment of sizing each other up the beefy bartender took a swing at me, (it was a wild haymaker right). As I leaned back to avoid getting hit I felt the concussion that the wind makes when the fist whistled by. (It was like being in a Volkswagen in the left lane as a tractor-trailer passes you in the fast lane.) I remember thinking to myself,” this guy is dangerous, I better finish him quick”.  I Stepped back, got into a “Cat Stance”, as he came in I launched a foot kick. (It bounced off of his huge torso and hardly affected him). Disheartened, I did a “Nippon Da Ki ”(a kind of circular punch with a wrist snap at the end of it). He stood back and laughed at me. Enraged and totally pissed, (not at him but at all the time that I had lost learning BS) I flew into him and reverted to the street fighting tactics that kept me safe when I was a child. I want to take a moment to elaborate on my feelings at the time because it is extremely important to get this message across; before I got pissed I experienced a sensation of extreme helplessness and profound vulnerability. I had spent years preparing myself for a moment like what was happening and was supremely confident in what would be my chosen response. In fact, I had even rehearsed various scenarios in my mind in the likelihood of such an event happening. There truly are no words that can describe the helplessness you feel when your safety mechanisms do not work. Imagine putting on a parachute and jumping from a burning aircraft, when you pull the ripcord only ropes come out because somebody forgot to pack the parachute.

That’s the kind of sinking desperate feeling that I had; a feeling that nothing that I could do could change things at this point, and that I was doomed. You don’t want your child to have to go through that.

Because of my natural gifts of pugilistic skill, I was able to beat the bartender easily, but the lesson that I had learned about theory vs realism would stick with me for the rest of my life.

The first chance that I had I quite the theoretically based school that I was attending and joined “Roberts Karate” (a Tae Kwon Do based system of “Martial Arts” that promoted tournament participation). Not only was I good at Tournament fighting, but I also became the East Coast Champion, transitioned into full contact and the rest is history. 

Today there isn’t a professionally run ”Martial Arts” facility in existence that does not promote the participation in tournaments as a form of prevention from and adjustment to the disorienting and paralyzing fear that can come with some of life’s most stressful situations: public speaking, defending one's self, applying for a new position, and group leadership. Savvy instructors know that On the Job Training in any of those situations can result in disaster and take steps to ensure their student's survivability by insisting on their participation in a friendly tournament.

Shouldn’t you do the same?

The Living Years

Not long ago, a group called “Mike and the Mechanics” made a record named “In the living years”. It was a song about how the composer missed and opportunity to makes amends with his father before he passed away. I almost had a similar situation happen to me.

I grew up in a violent household. I can remember as early as age three my father beating my mother. When he left her boyfriend beat her, and the violence traveled down to us and we, my brothers and I, were beaten mercilessly, sometimes until we bleed from our backs from the extension cord that my mother would use.

As I grew older it wasn’t the beatings that I resented the most it was the lack of education. You see, my mother was consumed with fear (a fact I did not know until recently). Every day, with her not working, she would keep one of us home with her from school; she slept with the lights on all night, and the thing that I hated the most was that I had to sleep with her until the age of about 11.

As I grew up, because of innate intelligence, I began to realize that I had missed the promise of everything that being educated had to offer. I first resented, then hated my mother, and threw up a wall of indifference and resentment to her and her feelings for me. For most of my life, she followed my development offering to assist whenever she felt that I needed a shoulder to lean on, but I was resolute in my rejection of her. I was so angry that I didn’t even let her develop a relationship with my son, her grandson.

Then one day out the clear blue sky it happened, I had a life-altering event, my son died, a victim of suicide. My life spiraled out of hand and one cold dark night I made the commitment to follow him. In the torturous weeks that followed I had developed enough strength of will to commit the deed when I got a phone handed to me, it was my mother. I didn’t hang up this time, I listened. As words of comfort eased my pain I found strength and a newborn will to live. I don’t know what made her call me at that time and on that day, maybe it was my soul crying out for help, all I know is that somehow she knew that I needed her and she was there for me. I opened my heart and let her in.

My son died in Sept 2006. His death caused my mother and me to develop a relationship based on friendship, she and I agreed that a mother-son relationship at that point would not work. Because we both wanted it to work and committed to giving it our all, mother and I developed shared a great, almost, 14 years relationship: we wrote and shared poetry, shared cooking recipes, hung around and talked, and had some great Christmases together.

Nearing her eighties, my brothers and I had to have my mother placed in a nursing home, as she began to suffer from “Sundowners disease“ (a kind of dementia where you hallucinate when the sun goes down).

The next to last day that I saw my mother, my brother and I were down for a visit, she started to hallucinate and imagined that she was about twelve again. During the hallucination, she said,” It’s almost dark. I hope he doesn’t come tonight, I am going to leave the light on, I’m afraid to sleep on my back, and it’s going to hurt”.

Her words hit me like a sudden slap as my brother and I stared at each other in stark confirmation that our mother had been raped when she was a little girl. In the blink of an eye everything made sense: the beatings, the lights, my having to sleep with her, these were all ways of her dealing with the atrocity that happened to her when she was a little girl. As my brother and I made our way back to the D.C. area we made a commitment to try, for the rest of her life, to make her as happy with life as we could. Unfortunately, it would only be another three weeks.

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Why I wrote this article:

I lucked out. I am not like the man in “Mike and the Mechanics” song; I was able to mend the fence and enjoy quality time with my mother before she died. I know that I am not the only person in the world who harbored pent up resentment for a friend or relative for things that they feel the other person did to them (real or imagined). I would like to suggest that this holiday season in the spirit of forgiveness if you have an estranged loved one or friend that you try to work it out. In the end, you will feel better for it.

Lastly, I want to share two poems that I recited at my mother’s funeral last weekend, one by her wishes the other for me (I wrote them both).

For mom:
Will Anybody Cry For Me?

I look at life and I cry for thee
I cry for the bird and I cry for the bee

The beautiful ones of natures song, whose lives you’d think can bear no wrong
A tear for them at the end of their life is that too much to ask amidst all of the strife

And what about us? Are we more important than them?
Sometimes I wonder with all of the games that we play

But for me, I try to live my life right
Give something to those the less fortunate plight

Sometimes it seems that there is no one to see
So I wonder, will anybody cry for me?


For Me:

Into the Light

Hither Thither where art thou now?
I look at the sky and my head do I bow?

Is there a heaven? For sure no one knows, but my heart feels for certain that you’re now amongst those

Grandfather, grandmother, friend Allen, G.E. They’ll find you they’ll guide you you’ll be safe you’ll see

Though my heart mourns your passing I must not use haste, I’ll stay hail your memory so that your life won’t be wasted

For the rest of my time here towards your memory, I’ll fight, when it’s over we’ll meet and walk into the light.

Thank all of you for your words of strength and your condolences.

May you all live to see one hundred, and I one hundred less a day so that I won’t have to live to see such beautiful people pass away.

MB

Is Martial Arts A Good Investment in Your Child?

It depends on what kind of investor you are

Before we look at what kind of investor you are, first let us look at the real purpose of enrolling a person in a martial arts class. In order to do that we have to look at some of the benefits associated with Martial Arts practice. Here is a list of the most sort after Self – defense, Self - Discipline, Concentration, Self – Control, Good Grades, Self – Esteem. As you can see martial arts is littered with what might be called SELF CONCEPTS.  Put plainly, Martial Arts is a medium used to improve one’s life by bringing about behavior modification. Behavior is tricky because it is tied to one’s personality – the thing that allows people to recognize us as us – and is difficult to change (more on this in my next article). So to ask what kind of investor is someone is analogous to asking how badly do you want to change someone’s personality?

Passive investor

Passive investors don’t give the market a chance. Instead of taking the time to put together a solid long term investment plan, they take what little money they have, invest it hesitantly and at the first sign of trouble bailout. Passive martial arts investors are the kinds of people who move forward with an overwhelming degree of caution. They don’t buy uniforms, download class cards, make sure that their child comes to class on time and say things like, ”I can’t get him to practice” or, ” I told him to practice and he won’t do it.”

Passive investors see martial arts as a ride on a carousel of trial enrichment programs. Their attitude is, ”he said that he wanted to take karate so I thought I’d let him try it, after this, we’re going to try soccer, but if he likes it we’ll keep going”. The problem with this attitude is that it is doomed to failure from the start. The reason is that good martial art are incentives based programs that reward students regularly with badges, stripes on the belt, patches, and other awards. If a student without a uniform watches his classmates (some that they are better than) get awards while they don’t they will lose motivation to try and soon drop out.

It a recipe for failure. Lastly, and very important passive martial arts investors don’t encourage follow-through, instead, they let their child discontinue, not just karate, but most themes that are good for them because the child is not having fun. Which is a total disconnect because acquiring discipline is not fun ( there I said it).

Aggressive investor

Aggressive stock market investors are very loss prone. They are not in the market for long term wealth or financial independence at some later date, they are in it for what they can get out of it now.

These adrenaline junkies run around the stock market chasing tip after tip hoping to get in on the bottom of initial stock offerings, make money and move on to the next stock. With greed as their motivating factor, these investors use a single-shot approach, investing all or most of their money in one stock at a time, which guarantees huge losses if the stock falls. Because of this, they spend many a sleepless night watching the stock market guardedly ready to pull their money out at the first sign of trouble.

In martial arts, there are individuals who chase belts with the same fervor. Their personal reputation and the reputation of Martial Arts means nothing to them. These people don’t care about the benefits the martial arts gives to individuals who live its experience: sound judgment, good character, moral leader, or feeling of deep responsibility to the community. Without concern for martial arts legacy, they mount an attack on the Martial Arts status in the world in an attempt to get what they want from it. They collect belt after belt as fast as they can with little regard for whether their child is actually Martial Arts functional morally and physically. The Martial Arts Code Of Honor (Bushido) means nothing to them as in their wake they leave a ruinous impression on the image of what Martial Arts has to offer.

In all but the accidental cases, in their rush to add Black Belt to their children’s resume’- so that it can open doors for them when they reach adulthood – aggressive investors children never acquire more than superficial amounts of discipline, leadership, moral standing or workplace ethics (the kinds of tangible values that make solid Martial Artist sought after all over the world). Responsible Martial Arts practitioners understand (over a period of time) that Martial Arts is a “give and take” experience with loyal practitioners giving back to the Martial Arts as much as they have been given in the form of lifestyle role modeling. On the other hand children of aggressive investors leave a bad taste for what Martial Arts can in the mouths of Employers, Deans and Recruiters for institutions of wealth and social, political advancement.

Steady as we go

The last kind of stock market investor is the “steady as we go” kind. These investors enter the market with long term goals in mind. They understand that the market is volatile, has ups and downs and is in it for the long haul. Most of these people understand that they are the lucky ones with incomes that allow them to take advantage of one of America’s greatest gifts, the ability for its citizens to take part in its inherent growth and wealth. Steady as you go investors understand that in America real estate and the Stock Market are the wealth-builders in America and take the time to educate themselves before and as they invest in an effort to stay on top flows.

While most, if not all, are savvy enough to hire professionals to guide them along they all know that if they can just hang in their bridge to a life free from fear of financial disaster and ruin will be build in just a few short years. Most hang their retirements on it. Steady as we go investors for their children in the Martial Arts have the same mentality. They know that if they have a good instructor the tangible benefits that their child will receive from their Martial Arts experience will outweigh any other gift that they can give them. Because they are educated/savvy investors they know that developing a Martial Arts lifestyle will ensure a good education, good job, good health, and a great life to the person or persons that they hold the dearest.

So they reinforce what the instructor is teaching at home, encourage home practice to enhance positive lifestyle and discourage dropping out when the going gets tough. They understand that while taking a test will bring about pride, waiting to test will ensure not only deep-rooted positive progress but the functional acquisition of skills needed to become a story of success.

Lastly, because of tools established by their instructor: community service badges, support awards, report cards, etc. they know that not only is the program working, but when the time comes for their child to represent what they have espoused in their resume’ he or she will do themselves and their parents proudly.

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Help a parent help their child.

By making a gift of my book to someone in need, you can help me help others and it doesn’t have to be to anyone that you know think orphanage, home for a run always, teenage moms, etc. the possibilities are endless.

This holiday season gives the gift of success, give a copy of my book: DAGPAW Means Success: A Parent’s Guide to Instilling Martial Arts Success Skills Into Their Child At Home.

Click here to Get it on Amazon

Guildelines to Developing an Adult that You can be Proud Of

In order to raise a perfect child, you must first understand what a perfect child is. A perfect child

is a child who’s behavior allows them to do the following things: absorb and retain academic information readily, reflect the values of their parents and community, have socially acceptable behavior, grow up to be a responsible contributing member of society, be honest and trustworthy under extreme circumstances, such as the risk of losing personal liberties.

The key to all of the above plus keeping your child safe from the influences of drugs and alcohol as they grow up is to instill discipline into them.

Of all of the gifts that you can give your child self-discipline is the most important, it is the king of success skills; but what is it, and how do you instill it into others?

The most misunderstood view of discipline is that it is a punishment, it is not.

It feels like a punishment because discipline is a restricting force. To put it plainly, discipline is making your body do something that it doesn’t want to do at that time.

Discipline is a major force in armies around the world. In fact, discipline was created for use in militaries. The Roman military was the first entity to create “Super Soldiers “ by instilling discipline into their troops. Before the Roman Empire, when there was a need to protect one's home and it was done by farmers who were undisciplined. Because of this, a lot of men caught in life-threatening situations on the battlefield simply dropped their weapons and ran away.

The Romans were the first society to have full-time soldiers. In there, training camps discipline was the key element to allow them to invent battlefield configurations that would wipe out entire armies. It was discipline in the ranks on the battlefield that allowed the Roman army to conquer the known world.

The Japanese taking cues from the Romans developed their school system based on the doctrine of discipline. Every student wears the same attire, moves in formation, lines up beside their desk chair and waits for the command to be seated, at lunch they all sit up straight, patiently waiting while everyone is served and when a bell is sounded begins eating at the same time. The incorporation of discipline into the Japanese school system has turned out super students that derive super incomes from jobs. 

Here are some things that you will never see: a homeless disciplined person, an obese disciplined person, drug-addicted disciplined people, a domestic violent disciplined person, a financially poor disciplined person, emotionally out of control disciplined people, an undisciplined CEO!

I, literally, can go on all day. In my opinion, the benefits of instilling self-discipline into a child are huge and far outweigh any other gift that you can bestow upon them.

 Discipline is more than just acknowledging another person’s rank or authority and belting out “Yes Sir” all the time. To successfully instill discipline into someone you must change their entire environment (By making soldiering a full-time profession that is exactly what the Romans were able to do). Every facet of their lives must be structured, nothing can be left out.

 I joined the Army when I was younger. When I reached the base for basic training and got off of the bus my Drill Sargent was waiting for me. Before my feet could hit the pavement he was in my ear barking out the do’s and don’t under his command.

 I was to respond to him at all times with “Yes Drill Sargent or No Drill Sargent”. I was to speak with a certain projection of volume in my voice; make eye contact; throw my shoulders back; stand up straight, and never get caught moping around. I was to walk like I had a purpose.

 That was just the start. When he took us to the barracks, we were shown how to make our beds, keep our closet and footlocker in order; our belt buckle had to be a certain length from the loop; our shirt had to be tucked into our pants with military precision; the collars of our shirt had to be turned down the exact same length; brash medals that we received had to be placed on the collar of our shirt at “ regulation” distance; not only did our shoes have to be shined to a certain brilliance but they had to be stored beneath the bed a certain way; he moved to the bathroom and told us, in no uncertain terms, exactly how we were to keep the bathroom clean; toothbrush bristles up; toothpaste cap screwed on tight; no toothpaste smears on the sink; no toothpaste, hairspray, or soap sprinkle residue on the  mirror; the toilet must be wiped and clean; even the floor had to be free of sprinkle residue from peeing.

 We were taught how to address officers; how to sit up straight in the mess hall;  even how to eat. Finally, we were taught how to walk. (You can tell if someone is in the military because they walk with a cadence.)

  An interesting thing about our society is that we started off, as a new nation, as a society that heaped huge amounts off discipline on our young.

American children were taught to get dressed in their best formal attire to attend church, school, theater, movies, etc. There was a “seen and not heard” policy when children entered into a room where adults were talking; before getting into bed children were expected to kneel at bedside and say their prayers; parents were referred to as “Sir and Ma’am”, when you were given a directive you didn’t quibble, argue or complain out loud, etc.

 Then something happened: that something is that children who grew up in the “spare the rod, spoil the child’ generation hated it so much that they gave their children too much independence as they grew up. Slowly but surely, and little by little generation after generation allowed their child to break away from the discomfort of discipline.

 In my option because of the loss of discipline in the home and in schools, the U.S. once the leader in healthcare and education now ranks 27th in the world, down from 6th in 1992.

People love their children dearly and a lot of people believe that they are doing the right thing by making their child their friend and confidant. Not only are children not prepared morally, intellectually, or emotionally to play that role but think of it would you try to discipline your friend? The natural structure of learning is broken.

A structure of learning is different from a structure of friendship. A structure of friendship is one of equals with shared ideas and values. In a friendship relationship, neither person will willingly subordinate their values or ideas to the other. This makes the installation of conceptual ideas impossible.  In a structure of learning the recipient of the idea must be in a subordinate posture in order to readily receive and digest the information.

Now a day it’s not uncommon for kids to call, not only adults but, their parents by their first names; curse out loud; decide what’s for dinner; embarrass their parents by not listening to them in public; tell their parents what they are and are not going to do; decide when to go to bed; go to school and church in a t-shirt; boys  idolize prison fashion by letting their pants fall below their waists exposing their rears; boys  show a total disrespect for girls by calling them bitches and ho’s; just the other day I witnessed a young women and her friend, standing in a grocery line, using the F word while conversing behind a mother and infant.

Without discipline people will resort to there lowest impulses when dealing with emotions that they don’t like.  In fact, without discipline kids that are not predisposed to act unruly, will act unruly to fit in. This kind of behavior is not only uncool it is unsafe and only has disastrous consequences.

 If you are serious about instilling discipline into your child, for a period of time, they must be raised the same way as if they were in a military boot camp and it has to be a full-time endeavor.

 This to the average person sounds like a daunting task that most people will reject out of hand, but think of this. If you are a parent, you probably made the parent’s pledge (I know my wife and I did). The one that goes something like this, “ I love him/her so much, I would do anything for him/her to keep them safe”.

Well, prove it.

The truth about discipline is that discipline not only keeps you safe it makes you trainable and therefore employable.

On a battlefield a highly disciplined person will survive when others around are dying; a disciplined person won’t succumb to peer pressure; disciplined people won’t succumb to drugs, sex, bribes, etc.; disciplined people do better in school thus get better jobs; disciplined persons accomplish goals; disciplined people finish what the start; disciplined people have good work habits and are sought after by bosses; finally, disciplined persons tend to be healthier because of good exercise habits thus live longer.

 The benefits of infusing discipline into your child far out weights the discomfort of instilling it.

 We even teach our dogs to respond on command so that they won’t run out into the street and get hit by a car. Yet some people let their children sash them, talk back to them, and totally disregard instructions given with immediacy and urgency.

 When instilling discipline into your child remember that, when the going gets tough and you want to give up, you will never see a disciplined felon or failure. Good luck!

 Here is my outline to instill discipline into your child.  I recommend the guideline for the U.S. military, therefore; like in military basic training, the actual installation of discipline should only take about eight to twelve weeks of concentrated effort. After that, all you should have to do is be consistent with what you have outlined.

 All children  even small ones should be introduced to discipline environmentally, In other words your home should have an “everything has a place and everything in its place rule”: beds should, not just, be made every day there should be an exact configuration; toothpaste caps should be tightened on the tube; shoes should be placed neatly under the bed, in the closet, or against a wall with socks in the toes; clothing should be folded or hung up (never thrown around); there should be strict eating times and places; household events should be given a specific time that family members stick to t.v.time, bedtime, reading time, study time, dog walking and feeding times, etc.

At the same time that you introduce your child to environmental discipline, you should introduce him/her to personal discipline.

Personal discipline comes in three forms: timed, mental, and physical. Of the three, timed discipline is the easiest to learn and should be taught first: time to read, walk the dog, brush teeth, etc.

Physical discipline is the second easiest to teach and should be taught through posture: sit up straight at the dinner table, walk erect (no slouching), when greeting someone makes eye contact stand erect shoulders back when conversing don’t allow the head to slump to the side, etc.

Because mental discipline is the hardest it is normally mastered last (although it is mastered last you should begin teaching it at the same time as physical discipline). 

 Mental discipline is especially hard to teach today because we are a much more indulgent society. A lot of adults allow their children to talk back, express their opinion about what they were just told to do, engage in adult conversations and engage in obstinate behavior. That is a recipe for disaster and will derail your discipline program before it begins.

 Mental discipline is what controls the physical discipline you can not have one without the other.

 The starting points of mental discipline are courtesy and respect. When a child remembers to say please and thank-you they are demonstrating the begin acquisition of mental discipline.

A catapulting force in the acquisition of discipline is the use of “Sir and Ma’am”. 

 When a child uses the title of “Sir or Ma’am” they are acknowledging their position as a subordinate. It is instinctively very hard for anyone much less a child to do this; when a child does this willingly they have demonstrated an ability to master their inner self and their emotions.  Words that sabotage the installation of personal and mental discipline are “ please and thank you” by an instructor trying to instill discipline.

 In this day and age, a lot of people feel that by using the reflection teaching method they will get a child a copy their example. In other words, if you the adult tell a child to do something and say please and then thank you the child will be a reflection of you and mimic the courtesy. This very rarely works. Instead what the child feels is that they are your peer and starts to believe that you need to be polite to them before they should have to do something. You will never hear a drill instructor say, By the way before breakfast each day please make up your bed.

 The installation of discipline is not a working relationship between a couple of friends. It is strictly lead-follow, I am the teacher, you are the student I’m not asking you to do something, I’m telling you to do it.

 Psychologically, when a person in an authoritative position (like a Judge) tells you to do something difficult or uncomfortable you do it whether you like it or not. On the other hand, if a person in an authoritative position asks you to do something difficult or uncomfortable you may choose not to do it. The installation of discipline should not be a choice.

Note: The younger the person is that you are trying to instill discipline into the easier it is. It is extremely difficult to get a teenager who has been allowed to not control themselves and their emotions to submit to a subordinate role. In my opinion, if a child won’t listen to you by the time they are eight or nine the battle may not be lost but you are going to have one helluva fight!

 Lastly Fear of consequence, real or imagined, is the chief motivating force to molding behavior. Kids respond to kindness only for so long, then their natural desire to run free overcomes their common sense.

 With maturity comes confidence the spell of fear is broken.

 Good parenting is an extremely difficult full-time job that takes a lot of sacrifices. A lot of parents think, mistakenly, that they can nice guy their child into being the person that they want. That never works. Bending rules and allowing a child unlimited freedom of expression is a recipe for disaster that, to my knowledge, never turns out well.

If you are the kind of person who understands the importance of the concept of discipline but knows that you are not well equipped to instill It I recommend the following, enroll your child into a martial arts class. Martial arts schools are really military schools for civilians. In fact, the word martial literally means military and martial arts means “Military Way”.

May you have everything that you want, and want everything that you have.