There will always be an ongoing parental challenge to stay balanced between over- disciplining and under-disciplining your children. If you over-discipline your children to the degree that you are telling them how they must think, feel and speak, this type of behavior is called domination, not discipline. Over-disciplining your children to the degree that you are dominating them will contribute to their feelings of inferiority and insecurity (poor Self-esteem and Self-image) because they will feel that, "No matter what I do, it is never good enough."

If you are unconsciously "caught" in a parental "fear identity" of over-disciplining your children and as such you are constantly correcting, ordering and telling them what to do, think and feel, you are teaching your children that they can’t do it alone and that they must depend on you to survive, which will make them feel incapable and not good enough.

Paradoxically, however, your job is to be your children’s parent, not their friend. They have enough friends. What they need is an authority figure whom they can depend upon, someone with whom they feel safe no matter what. The most important (and most difficult) parental word to learn to say is "no," while simultaneously validating your children’s hurt feelings. It is normal and natural for your children to feel sad or angry when you tell them "no" because anyone would feel that way. This is a difficult learning paradox that many parents never master, so their parental actions polarize between being too lenient and too strict.

Domination is the opposite of the Self-parenting objective to teach your children how to parent themselves. If this fear identity is causing you to "rule over" your children because of some unconscious unmet needs of your own, I want you to take a deep, hard look at how this behavior is affecting your children’s Self-esteem and Self-confidence.

"When disciplining your child, avoid blaming, accusing, name-calling and threats.

The goal is to engage cooperation, set limits and teach your child Self-discipline—not to breed resentment and rebellion. You can do this by describing the situation that needs attention, giving your child information about cause and effect, discussing your feelings honestly and showing the big picture of a process."

• WAYNE DYER

If touching, holding, kissing, and being physically demonstrative with your children is difficult for you because of your own unmet childhood emotional dependency needs, its important for you to own right here and now that it is rooted in your own poor Self-esteem and Self-image. If you have core fear beliefs such as: "It’s just the way I am; I can't help it; I’ve always been that way," then dis-creating these dis-empowering beliefs needs to be high on your list of holistic parenting priorities.

Wayne Dyer taught me some of the more common practices that contribute to lowered feelings of Self-worth and a depletion of Self-confidence in our children.

Telling our children that they are bad boys or girls. Children, who believe they are bad when they have only behaved badly, begin to assess their worth as a person based upon these judgments.

Telling our children that they are good boys or girls only when they behave properly. Here again, the difference between behaving properly or nicely and being a good person is not distin¬guished. It is just as detrimental to a child's sense of Self-worth to believe that he is good only because he behaves well as it is to believe that he is bad because he sometimes behaves badly.

Constantly catching children doing something wrong. This approach to parenting says, "I will look for the things that my children are doing wrong and remind them about that behavior all the time." Children who are only talked to or noticed when they are doing something wrong soon come to doubt themselves and believe that they are disliked.

Using pet names for children which contribute to a lowered sense of Self-regard. Calling children shorty, dumbo, turkey, klutz, nerd, spaz, fatso or any name which is not designed to promote positive Self-regard is a way of creating a lowered sense of Self-worth. These become daily reminders of how clumsy, incompetent or unattractive they are, and while they may seem like meaningless little pet names to you, they actually are repetitive reinforcers of apparent flaws to your children.

Viewing children as "apprentice people" who have not really arrived yet as total human beings. This attitude is characterized by treating children as if they are always preparing for life—telling them that someday they will know why they are expected to do what you are asking of them. This type of message conveys to children that they aren’t whole, that they are incomplete, and that they should view themselves as partial people.

Treating children as part of one big, whole unit, rather than as individuals. Constantly comparing children to brothers and sisters, or to you when you were a child, or to other children in the neighborhood, gives them a feeling of not being special and unique. If children are treated like pieces of a puzzle, rather than whole, unique, special individuals, they will soon begin to assess themselves in this way. Lowered Self-esteem comes from believing that "I am not special and unique," and this kind of Self-assessment comes from hearing sentences like, "Who do you think you are, someone special?" "You're no different from everybody else around here!" "Why can't you be like your sister?" "Why, when I was a child, we always did what our parents said…or else!"

Refusing to give children responsibility. Doing and thinking for children will contribute to lowered Self-worth and undermine their Self-confidence. You will create opportunities for children to develop a lot of Self-doubt by constantly sending messages showing that you do not think they can do things correctly, or that they should not try because you believe it is too difficult for them.

Keeping your distance from your children, and refusing to touch, kiss, hold, wrestle, or play with them. By maintaining a physical distance from your children, you will teach them to doubt their own lovability. Children who are not fondled and physically loved begin to internalize the notion that they are not worth being held and loved. They begin to see themselves as unattractive, and ultimately they will doubt themselves as lovable, worthwhile hu¬mans.

"I believe that the time we really look big in a child’s eyes is when we go to them to apologize for our mistakes. I believe the words that no parent can do without are ‘I was wrong. Will you forgive me?’"

• DR. KEVIN LEMAN