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her feel unloved, unwanted, and insecure. One of the best guarantees against this happening is a loving conclusion to the disciplinary encounter.
    3. Control without nagging (it is possible). Yelling and nagging at children can become a habit, and an ineffectual one at that! Have you ever screamed at your child, “This is the last time I’m telling you for the last time!” Parents often use anger to get action instead of using action to get action. It is exhausting and it doesn’t work! Trying to control children by screaming is as utterly futile as trying to steer a car by honking the horn.
    Let’s consider an illustration that could represent any one of a million homes at the end of a long, intense, whirlwind day. Dead-tired, Mom feels her head pounding like a bass drum as she contemplates getting her son to take a bath and go to bed. But eight-year-old Henry does not want to go to bed and knows from experience that it will take his harassed mother at least thirty minutes to get him there.
    Henry is sitting on the floor, playing with his games. Mom looks at her watch and says, “Henry, it’s nearly nine o’clock (a thirty-minute exaggeration), so gather up your toys and go take your bath.” Now Henry and Mom both know that she didn’t mean for him to immediately take a bath. She merely wanted him to start thinking about taking his bath. She would have fainted dead away if he had responded to her empty command.
    Approximately ten minutes later, Mom speaks again. “Now, Henry, it’s getting later and you have school tomorrow; I want those toys picked up and then I want you in that tub!” She still does not intend for Henry to obey, and he knows it. Her real message is, “We’re getting closer, Hank.” Henry shuffles around and stacks a box or two to demonstrate that he heard her. Then he settles down for a few more minutes of play.
    Six minutes pass and Mom issues another command, this time with more passion and threat in her voice, “Now listen, young man, I told you to get a move on, and I meant it!” To Henry, this means he must get his toys picked up and m-e-an-d-e-r toward the bathroom door. If his mother rapidly pursues him, then he must carry out the assignment posthaste. However, if Mom’s mind wanders before she performs the last step of this ritual, or if the phone miraculously rings, Henry is free to enjoy a few minutes’ reprieve.
    You see, Henry and his mother are involved in a familiar one-act play. They both know the rules and the role being enacted by the opposite actor. The entire scene is preprogrammed, computerized, and scripted. In actuality, it’s a virtual replay of a scene that occurs night after night. Whenever Mom wants Henry to do something he dislikes, she progresses through graduated steps of phony anger, beginning with calmness and ending with a red flush and threats. Henry does not have to move until she reaches her flashpoint.
    How foolish this game is. Since Mom controls Hank with empty threats, she must stay half-irritated all the time. Her relationship with her children is contaminated, and she ends each day with a pulsing migraine above her left eye. She can never count on instant obedience, because it takes her at least five minutes to work up a believable degree of anger.
    How much better it is to use action to achieve the desired behavior. There are hundreds of approaches that will bring a desired response, some of which involve slight pain, while others offer the child a reward. The use of rewards or “positive reinforcement” is discussed in the next chapter, and thus will not be presented here. But minor pain or “negative reinforcement” can also provide excellent motivation for the child.
    When a parent’s calm request for obedience is ignored by a child, Mom or Dad should have some means of making their youngster want to cooperate. For those who can think of no such device, I will suggest one: it is muscle lying snugly against the base of the neck. Anatomy