One of the reasons — it’s probably in the top three reasons, in fact — that parents fail at solving discipline problems is that they try to solve too many at once. In so doing, they scatter their disciplinary energy too thinly and end up solving none. The only thing they accomplish is getting more frustrated and more convinced that there is something about their child that renders discipline ineffective — a gene perhaps, inherited from the father (who else?), that causes a biochemical imbalance.