--- title: "Discipline Tips for Miami Parents | Parent Marriage" description: "The best tips to discipline my child, from a Miami marriage coach: why the two of you disagreeing about discipline is the real problem, and how to fix it." lang: en json-ld: | [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "LocalBusiness", "@id": "https://parentmarriage.com/#business", "name": "Parent Marriage Coaching", "description": "Emotionally Connected Couples and Marriage Coaching for parents. 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What I work on is the agreement between the two parents, which is where most discipline problems in my sessions actually live. If your child needs an evaluation, that belongs with a licensed professional." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "My partner is far too strict. How do I get them to ease up?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Almost certainly not by softening further to compensate, which is what most people do and which makes the strict parent harder. Take it out of the moment entirely, sit down when nobody is crying, and ask what they are afraid will happen if the line is not held. The answer is usually about how they were raised, and it is not a conversation that can happen mid incident." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is a reward the same as a bribe?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "No, and the difference is the timing. A bribe is paid in advance to buy compliance and it stops working within weeks because the price only goes up. A reward comes after the behavior. A does not happen until B is done. That structure has held in my house for years and it is simple enough that two tired parents can run it the same way." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Should we ever disagree about discipline in front of the kids?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Not in the moment. Back the enforcement, then take the disagreement offline and raise it later that night. Overruling your spouse in front of a child does not correct your spouse, it teaches your child that rules are decided by whichever adult wins the argument, and after that every rule you set is treated as an opening offer." } } ] } ] --- [![Parent Marriage](/__l5e/assets-v1/323329b7-bfb6-4413-bc32-07161cb70b98/parent-marriage-logo.png)](/) [Home](/)[The 8 Stages](/help-me-save-my-marriage)[About](/about)[Marriage Straight Talk](/free-marriage-advice) [305-986-2905](tel:+13059862905)[Book a consultation](/book) [Book](/book) 1. [Home](/) 2. Discipline Guide # How to Discipline Your Child Without Splitting Your Marriage Parents search for discipline tips. What they usually have is a marriage problem wearing a toddler costume, and no set of tips survives two adults pulling opposite ways. ![How discipline works when you are raising a child](/assets/Parent-Marriage-300x200-C9niewNH.jpg) I should say what I am and what I am not before you read another line. I am a marriage coach. I am not a child psychologist, I do not diagnose anything, and I am not going to tell you what is happening inside your 4 year old's brain. What I know something about is what happens between the two adults in the house, and that turns out to be most of the story. Because here is what I actually see. A couple books a session about their kid. Ten minutes in, it is not about the kid at all. One of them thinks the other is too soft. The other thinks the first one is too harsh. Neither has said that out loud in a calm room in about 2 years, so it has been said badly, in front of the child, at 7:40pm, roughly 300 times. That is the problem. Not the tantrums. In this article 1. 01 [The discipline argument is a marriage argument](#the-real-problem) 2. 02 [How the strict one gets stricter](#polarization) 3. 03 [Agree in private, enforce in public](#agree-first) 4. 04 [Be the calm one, because the calm one gets the truth](#be-calm) 5. 05 [Four rules the two of you can both hold](#the-rules) 6. 06 [Five good moments for every correction](#presence) 7. 07 [Reward the truth or you will stop hearing it](#honesty) 8. 08 [When the two of you genuinely cannot agree](#when-you-cannot-agree) 9. 09 [Talk it through](#talk-it-through) 10. 10 [Questions couples ask](#faq) ## The discipline argument is a marriage argument No set of tips works if the two of you are running different systems. Kids do not need a perfect approach. They need a consistent one, and consistency across two parents is a marriage skill before it is a parenting skill. The tell is easy. If your child comes to one of you specifically when they want a yes, you do not have a discipline problem, you have a routing problem, and they figured out the routing before either of you noticed there was one. Children are exceptional at finding the seam between two adults. They are not being manipulative. They are being efficient. What kids actually read Kids do not learn the rule. They learn how the rule is enforced, and how the two of you behave with each other while enforcing it. That second part is the curriculum, and it is running whether or not you meant to teach it. ## How the strict one gets stricter This is the pattern I see most and neither parent can see it from inside. It runs on its own once it starts. One of you moves toward discipline. The other, watching that, softens to compensate. Which makes the first one feel like the only adult holding the line, so they harden. Which makes the second one soften further to protect the child from the hardening. Six months of that and you have two parents at the far ends of a spectrum, both of whom would be perfectly reasonable if the other one were not there. Each is being made more extreme by the other's correction. What they say The one who feels like the enforcer What they say The one who feels like the buffer If I do not hold the line nobody does, and I am tired of being the only bad guy in this house. Somebody has to be a soft place for them, because they are getting nothing but rules from the other side. You undermine me in front of them and then I have to escalate to be taken seriously. You escalate so fast that I have to step in, and then I am the one who looks disloyal. I do not enjoy this. I would love to be the fun one for a week. I would love to be able to say no without bracing for how it will be enforced. They respect me and they like you. They are scared of you and they walk all over me. Both of those columns are describing the same marriage. Both people are right about their own experience and wrong about their partner's motive. That is a fixable conversation and it never happens on its own, because the only time it comes up is mid incident when a child is crying and nobody is at their best. If your arguments generally go this way, the mechanics are in [how to stop constant arguing](/how-to-stop-constant-arguing-in-a-relationship). ## Agree in private, enforce in public The single highest value thing you can do this month has nothing to do with your child. Sit down, without them, for 20 minutes, and decide the small number of things you are both going to hold. Not a philosophy. Not a parenting book. Four or five specific rules and what happens when they are broken. Then hold each other to the enforcement, in front of the kids, even when you privately disagree with how your partner is handling it that particular evening. You take the disagreement offline and raise it later. That is the whole discipline of it, and it is harder than any technique on this page. The 20 minute agreement 1. Each of you names the 3 behaviors that matter most to you. Overlap is usually higher than either expects. 2. Cut the combined list to 5 rules. Five is the ceiling. Twelve rules is zero rules. 3. Decide the consequence for each one before it happens, while nobody is angry 4. Agree on the sentence you use when you disagree in the moment: we will talk about it later 5. Set a date 3 weeks out to look at what worked and drop what did not You will also want to name the third parties. In Miami especially, there is often a grandmother 12 minutes away with strong views and a standing invitation. My wife is Argentine, so I have had this negotiation in my own kitchen and I will tell you it goes better as a decision the two of you made together than as one spouse defending their own family. More on that collision in [love, marriage and family problems](/love-marriage-family-problems). ## Be the calm one, because the calm one gets the truth The best parenting advice I ever got came from diving. I was being trained to notice the moment adrenaline hits, because underwater that surge shuts down the logical part of you and replaces it with fast, narrow, confident reactions. Confident and wrong. Underwater that can kill you. In a hallway with a screaming toddler the stakes are lower and the mechanism is identical. With twin boys, I heard a lot of crying without seeing what caused it. My instinct was to fly in and start assigning blame. What I learned to do instead was secure the scene, check everybody is fine, and ask what happened in an unremarkable voice. The first answer is almost always it was an accident or I did not do anything, because kids are afraid of blame before they are afraid of consequences. My tone in that 10 seconds decided whether I got the truth or a story. Yelling does one thing reliably. It makes the adult feel better for about 90 seconds and it teaches the child that the fastest way out of trouble is to manage your reaction rather than tell you what happened. Count to 10 first. Not for them. For you. ![Parents happily helping their kids make a salad](/assets/How-Discipline-Works-When-Youre-Raising-a-Child-Part-2-1-269x300-a-qgrjNb.jpg) Kids follow rules they helped build far more often than rules handed to them. ## Four rules the two of you can both hold These are the ones I hand out because they are simple enough that two tired adults can actually run them the same way. Rewards, never bribes. The golden rule in my house is that A does not happen until B is done. Electronics after homework. Gift shop money after the chores. People occasionally call that bribery and I disagree flatly. A bribe is paid in advance to buy compliance. A reward comes after the behavior. Bribes stop working almost immediately. Rewards keep working for years. And never spend a reward you did not have to spend, because there is always something coming this weekend that can be attached to something you need done first. Never threaten what you will not do. The instant you announce a consequence and do not deliver it, every request you make becomes negotiable and your kids will test that discovery repeatedly, because they would be foolish not to. A small correction delivered immediately beats an enormous threat delivered never. Keep it proportionate and quick. In my house, a punishment scheduled a week out never landed. The moment had passed and all that was left was resentment with no lesson attached. Short, clean and immediate does more. Redirect after the storm. Once it is over, check what was actually going on. Missed nap. Skipped lunch. Or the most common one, which is that acting out was the only reliable method they had for getting you fully present. You do not reward the behavior in the moment. You do go find them something to be good at later that week. What quietly makes it worse - Overruling each other in front of them You have not corrected your partner. You have taught your child that rules are decided by whoever wins the adult argument, and now every rule is an opening bid. - Discipline as a mood When the same behavior gets a shrug on Tuesday and a punishment on Thursday, kids stop learning the rule and start learning to read your face. That is a skill they carry into adulthood and it is not a gift. - Calling a child lazy or stupid Never available to you. If the behavior is not landing, they need clearer rules and fairer enforcement, not a character assessment they will still be carrying at 40. - Making the child the marriage referee Asking a kid whose side they are on, even lightly, even as a joke, puts them in a position no child can hold. ## Five good moments for every correction I borrow a ratio from the couples research, where stable partners run roughly 5 positive exchanges for every negative one. I apply the same proportion at home with kids and it has served me well. Five moments of noticing, complimenting, or simply being present for every correction you make. Notice what that ratio does to a marriage too. Parents who are running at one to one with their children are almost always running at one to one with each other, because the same depleted evening produces both. Kids need your presence far more than they need your presents, and so does your spouse. The couple that never gets 20 minutes alone is the couple that has nothing left to bring to the hallway at 7:40pm. The order of operations Fix the agreement between the two of you first, then the discipline. Doing it the other way round is why parenting books do not work. A technique executed by two people pulling in opposite directions is not a technique, it is a new thing to argue about. ## Reward the truth or you will stop hearing it Teaching kids to tell you the truth is the hardest and most valuable thing on this list. Before a child hands you the full version of what happened, they have to believe you will not detonate. Most parents are, as I tell couples, doing a Jack Nicholson impression without knowing it. You cannot handle the truth, and your kids have worked that out. What I told mine, early and repeatedly, is that they will always be in far less trouble for telling me straight away than for me finding out later. Then I had to actually honor that, including the times when the straight answer was infuriating. Deal with the situation first. Use the lesson afterward, once nobody is shaking. I also send them off to think about it rather than counting to 10, and then I ask 2 questions. What was wrong about that, and how do you think the other person felt. Then I repeat their answer back to them so they can correct what I got wrong. That last part matters more than the consequence, and it is the same skill I teach couples in [conflict resolution strategies](/conflict-resolution-strategies). > Kids do not learn the rule. They learn how the rule is enforced, and how the two of you behave with each other while enforcing it. Matthew W. Hoelscher, PCC ## When the two of you genuinely cannot agree You have tried to settle this twice and it turned into a fight both times. Now what? Keep negotiating in the moment You carry on sorting it out live, while a child is crying and both of you are running on 5 hours of sleep and the last 6 months of unspoken resentment. You will keep having the identical argument, and the child will keep learning that the rules are whatever the adults settle on tonight. Take it out of the hallway You treat it as a marriage conversation instead of a parenting one, at a scheduled time, with nobody crying, and you find out what each of you is actually protecting. Usually one of you is reenacting how you were raised and the other is reacting against how they were raised. Once that is on the table it stops being a fight about screen time. That is the version of this I run in sessions, and it is squarely inside what [a parent marriage](/what-is-a-parent-marriage) is about. The kids are not the problem. The kids are the arena where the two of you found out you never agreed on something important. ## Talk it through If reading this made you recognize your own hallway, [book a free 25 minute call](/talk-to-marriage-coach). It is for first timers and it costs nothing. We will spend it on the two of you, because that is where the leverage is. ## Questions couples ask ### Are you a child psychologist? No. I am a marriage coach, an ICF PCC, and I do not diagnose anything or make claims about child development. What I work on is the agreement between the two parents, which is where most discipline problems in my sessions actually live. If your child needs an evaluation, that belongs with a licensed professional. ### My partner is far too strict. How do I get them to ease up? Almost certainly not by softening further to compensate, which is what most people do and which makes the strict parent harder. Take it out of the moment entirely, sit down when nobody is crying, and ask what they are afraid will happen if the line is not held. The answer is usually about how they were raised, and it is not a conversation that can happen mid incident. ### Is a reward the same as a bribe? No, and the difference is the timing. A bribe is paid in advance to buy compliance and it stops working within weeks because the price only goes up. A reward comes after the behavior. A does not happen until B is done. That structure has held in my house for years and it is simple enough that two tired parents can run it the same way. ### Should we ever disagree about discipline in front of the kids? Not in the moment. Back the enforcement, then take the disagreement offline and raise it later that night. Overruling your spouse in front of a child does not correct your spouse, it teaches your child that rules are decided by whichever adult wins the argument, and after that every rule you set is treated as an opening offer. [Book a free call ](/book) ![Matthew W. Hoelscher, marriage coach in Miami](/__l5e/assets-v1/793ff08a-677d-4393-a950-cb99a7968138/matt-portrait.jpg) Matthew W. Hoelscher, PCC ICF Professional Certified Coach and the marriage coach behind Parent Marriage, in Miami. He is a coach, not a licensed therapist, [Book a free call](/book) Book a consultation ## 25 minutes. _Honest answer._ Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help. No pressure, no sales pitch. [Book a free call ](/book) Or call [305.986.2905](tel:+13059862905) ![Parent Marriage](/__l5e/assets-v1/323329b7-bfb6-4413-bc32-07161cb70b98/parent-marriage-logo.png) Emotionally Connected Couples Coaching in Miami and by video nationwide. 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