I have realized that one essential key to effective parenting is to reverse this order in expenditure of time and energy. In spite of the situation or circumstances, I must begin focusing my energy on helping things go right rather than on handling them once they have gone wrong.
..the more effective we are at training our children to make right choices, the easier it is to correct them when they don't. This is because the better we teach our children, the more correcting them becomes merely an extension of that teaching. The particular method of discipline we use will then matter less because: (1) we will be doing it less often, and (2) whichever method we use will feel to our children more like teaching and less like retribution. Far from seeing our children as irritations, or as disloyal and ungrateful burdens who require correction, we will begin to see them instead as children who have not yet learned. The emotional character of our correction will be loving and helpful rather than impatient and angry.