To download a printable version of this transcript, click here.
 
 
iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Gary Smalley 
 
 
Question: 
 
I can't control my kids. What can I do? 
 
Answer:  
 
So, you’ve lost control of your kids. There are some things I’ve been 
learning over the past fifty years that have really helped me in raising 
my three kids, but it also comes from great research on parenting and 
the most effective parenting styles. It comes down to four types of 
parents. I’m going to give you the worst type first, that produces the 
worst kind of kids, and then I’m going to go all the way to the best 
kind of parent, the best kind of parenting style. 
 
The worst type of parenting style is the type that has no rules and 
basically no love. They’re the ones who never say they love their kids. 
They never show it, they never hug them. They sort of ignore them. It 
would be like getting a nanny and just leaving them, or you send them 
off to military school and basically you don’t deal with them.  
 
It’s like not having kids. There are no rules. You don’t care whether 
they break rules or not. They’re like your buddy, you know, you’re 
“hanging out” with some kids. That’s the worst kind of parent, because 
it never teaches them limits or boundaries, and it never gives them 
the feeling of value and being blessed.  
 
When a child feels blessed, they feel valued, they feel extremely 
worthwhile—and you can do a lot to help a child feel that great worth, 
that they need to feel before they leave your home. And they need to 
also know that there are limits in this world. There are boundaries. 
 
 
 
So, if you’re raising kids and you’re not connected with them at all, the 
chances of them becoming pretty wild and anti-social and everything 
else is high, if you follow that first style of parenting—no love, no 
rules. 
 
Second type. This is where you have no love, but a lot of rules. This is 
that tough parent, the parent who demands, “Because I said so!” and, 
“Here are the rules around this house. You’re either going to live by 
them, or you’re not living in this house!” You know, “We’ll do whatever 
we have to, but you’re going to be spanked, you’re going to be 
disciplined. There’s going to be rules that are going to be obeyed 
around here!” But you never love them, you never show consideration, 
you never hug them, you never just get quiet with them to build that 
value, you never bless them.  
 
You’re lacking in the love that they need—but you’re not lacking in the 
rules, boy! That produces pretty rebellious kids. It can close their 
spirit. They don’t tend to be socially-acceptable children. They have a 
hard time in their own marriage and their own friendships. So, you’re 
not doing a great thing if you just have rules. 
 
The third type, the third style, is a parent that has a lot of love, hugs, 
praising, building worth, who blesses their kids, listens to them, goes 
to the games or sporting events, just really does a lot of things—but 
no rules. I mean, you really don’t discipline them. If they do 
something wrong, they spill the milk, they eat with their mouth open, 
whatever they’re doing, “Oh, it’s so sweet.” You know, “It’s OK, 
sweetheart. It doesn’t bother me. I love you so much.” Did you know 
that that actually produces pretty good kids? The research shows that 
if you don’t have any rules, they still grow up being pretty good. 
 
It’s amazing, isn’t it? 
 
Page -2- 
 
 
So, that leads us to the fourth style and the best style. This is obvious 
to you by now. That’s balanced with love and rules, where you really 
build the worth of your child and you bless them. You say, “I love you. 
I’m so proud of you.” You hug them, you praise them a lot. You 
encourage them, you spend time with them. You keep your promises. 
You camp with them, or whatever you do together, but you have that 
friendship with them, because they really know they’re loved and 
blessed by you.  
 
But you also have rules. We found the best way to do the rules is to 
write a family constitution—just like the U.S. Constitution, or the 
constitution in any country, it regulates the behavior of our country. 
You can do the same thing in your home. We wrote up a six-article 
constitution. We printed it up, put it in a frame, put it on the wall, and 
every night for three years when they were really small, we had a 
nightly meeting to see how we were doing. Because, with every article 
of the constitution, there was a corresponding consequence if they 
violated it.   
 
But guess who picked the consequences? The kids did! So the 
constitution became the policemen, and the kids were supervising 
themselves, because they didn’t want to do the consequence. One of 
them would be, “No TV for twenty-four hours.” I remember one time 
they said, “No eating. No dinner for one night,” and we thought, “That 
sounds pretty good,” so we put that down. And then, of course, Greg 
was the first one to violate that, and when it came time for that 
violation, we all caved in because he was so pathetic and in the next 
room drooling, that we said, “Let’s get another consequence for that.” 
So, you’re flexible with it, but the constitution is brilliant. 
 
A pediatrician taught me this, and it worked. It was like a miracle. But 
we loved them. Do you know what else we did? We never finished a 
day, we did this every day of our lives with our kids, we made sure if 
Page -3- 
 
 
they felt damaged, honored, and we repaired any damage we did 
every day, if we could before the sun went down.  
 
And so, those two things, parenting with balance, was the key to our 
own family in our experience.   
 
Page -4- 
To download a printable version of this transcript, click here.