Sometimes John Rosemond just nails it in his column. From what I remember of my children’s toddlerhood, Rosemond was kind of the anti-Brazelton. While Rosemond focused on more traditional methods of parenting that most of us grew up with, Brazelton was more in vogue when my kids were little and focused on “flexible discipline boundaries” and “empathic involvement.”

Yesterday I was reading John Rosemond’s column in the N&O and he made me laugh out loud and applaud him at the same time. The question came from a Mom of an almost 2-year old who is into throwing. She says, “During a recent dinner out, he threw a fork that whizzed by a lady’s head, just missing her eye.” Rosemond’s response? “I have to ask why intelligent people would go into a restaurant with a not-quite-2-year-old who has a habit of throwing things at people. Can you say “common sense?”

Now I am a curmudgeonly Mom of teens who can look superciliously at those silly new Moms who end up “Brazelmonding” (my newly coined word) because they just can’t decide between the two methods. I’m so jaded that I wouldn’t even question the Mom’s decision to take a kid who throws to a restaurant…I question taking any not-quite-2-year-old to a restaurant. Period. But I’ve ranted about this before.

In some ways, as a Mom of teens, I look with envy at those whose disciplinary conundrums are over concrete issues such as throwing things, using bad words (like “shut up”…which became a very bad word in my kids’ day, prompting kids to look aghast at parents who uttered those words, but barely blinking when the parents inadvertently said, “S***” or some other 4-letter word) and not staying in bed at bedtime.

Now the issues are more nebulous. Sometimes we aren’t really sure if we are hearing a lie, a half-truth or some combination of the two. Believe it or not, many of parents of teens desperately want to believe when their child says, “Really. It’s not mine. I was just holding it for…” We roll our eyes at those parents, but then turn around and swallow similar lines hook, line and sinker. We want to believe that everything applies to teens…but not to MY child. Cell phones have given our kids a way to contact us to tell us they are going to be just a few minutes late for curfew. When I was growing up, five minutes late had the same consequence as a half-hour late, so believe me, I found a way to get home by curfew.

Discipline among the Moms-of-teens set seems to now fall into a predictable routine of:

• Taking the cell phone away;
• Taking the computer away; and
• Grounding.

I have heard threats of military school. I even know someone who sent his child to such a school with fantastic results. My friend’s son used to be a drill sergeant, maybe we should just have him set up a summer boot camp for our teens and see how they feel about real discipline. I look fondly back at “time out” as a punishment. There is no logic to sending a teen to his/her room because that’s where they spend most of their waking/non-school hours anyway.

What to do? I’m looking for ideas and answers here. Next week, I’m going to tell you about how the strategies my Mom-idol has used to raise three great kids and share ideas and answers submitted by readers.