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When my younger son was born in ’91 we had a wonderful baby sitter who began to travel with us for various events allowing my husband and me time to participate. The two of us had some wonderful conversations as to her relationship or lack thereof with her parents as well as her friend’s relationships with their parents. She helped me realize something was needed to assist parents to not only be better moms and dads, but better people. My original idea was “What what would I do if I were your parent?”

As my kids became older my intention was to visit various schools in the area/state and begin collecting data. My oldest friend, a school teacher in Bothell Washington, offered me her classroom and her students. Being my children were young, I never made it north to visit. Subsequent years ensued; Mary followed the idea and asked her students questions about how they saw their roles in the family unit and used it as a comparison for the book “Ordinary People”. What she discovered were some very basic tenants the students recommended again and again, year after year. Being the literature teacher she is I suggested she be the writer and ‘go for it’. Mary then began to catalogue and assemble the list of ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the Ten Commandments for Parents.

The first one, the one that came up over again and again was discipline. Basic boundaries. We live in a world where boundaries are virtually non-existent in so many areas of our lives. The government operates under this premise of ‘no boundaries’ in so many of the basic policies, all of which trickles down into our media, the Internet, communities and families. We expect our children to understand the idea of boundaries and respect with so many mixed signals reaching them daily. And on top of this, we have parents who are over-taxed, over-stressed, over-weight/unhealthy, with little time to share, which translates into the need to fill gaps with loose expectations and over-compensation. In other words, they neglect to implement good guidelines and workable logical discipline.

In her book, Discipline Me Right, Mary Simmons has created a wonderful tool for parents with children of any age, as teaching boundaries/discipline is not age specific. It is also useful in negotiating through any kind of relationship as discipline is always an aspect; in other words, keeping respect for yourself and others is the biggest component to any relationship.

I am so happy Mary ran with the idea and brought it to fruition. She is an excellent writer and offers many tools and examples allowing the reader opportunities for change and understanding. I would highly recommend this book from my own personal experience as a mom, watching friends and family do well or muddle through parenting, and from all the various clients I have worked with over the years. We can always improve our skills in any area; we can never be perfect. Having a highly researched and credible resource, not only from the kids themselves but from an exceptional teacher is a needed gift. I would invite you to search out this amazing new pragmatic and practical book at www.amazon.com : Discipline Me Right by Mary Simmons.