What should I do about child discipline?

Dear Doctor,
My boyfriend and I have been talking about getting married and having children but we can't seem to agree on disciplining them when they do something wrong. He told me that he doesn't believe in it because it just makes the child worse but I disagree and say that every child is going to need discipline. (such as grounding, "time out," etc.) He says disciplining them will only make them scared of us and they won't tell us if they have done something wrong for fear of discipline. Please help me out. What should we do?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Dear Lisa,

There is absolutely no doubt that responsible parenting includes, among other things, sensible limit-setting and discipline. Children require this if they are to develop sound values and the ability to control their impulses and conform to the common-sense demands of social convention.

My guess is that your boyfriend has a mistaken notion of what is meant by discipline, because he appears to regard discipline as hurtful. It would proably help for the two of you to meet a couple or a few times with a child mental health clinician to review this matter and to flesh out what you both mean by discipline, and to pin down what each of you think are responsibilities of a parent. I can't imagine, for example, that your boyfriend thinks that children should do whatever they want to do, regardless of the opinion of the parents. But that is exactly the logical consequence of adopting a stance that parents shouldn't discipline thir children.

[From a successful poster.......]

Dear Lisa,

I just needed to comment that it is so refreshing to hear of a couple sorting these things out BEFORE they have children.  Too many people jump into parenthood blindly.  Your future children are very lucky!