Who's got the love?

So, I've been pondering lately...could be a very good thing, usually, but it sometime leaves me stumped.  It's been years since I was a kid, so I am sometimes baffled by how my children act and why they do what they do.  Do you ever find yourself trying to revert back to when you were your kid's age (if you have children) and wonder how you probably would have acted in certain situations and how your parents may have disciplined you?  I find myself doing this increasingly - still trying to decide if this is a red flag for what's down the road;  Anyway, so my question is, do you kill with love or do you kill with parental authority when kids are thinking they're world as they know it is ending?  I've tried both - not always successful.  I'm either getting trampled on with the "love" part because the kids see it as an open opportunity of mom being weak, or, I pull the reigns WAY in and then the kids are crying constantly, and really who's happy with the outcome?  And if I try a combination of the two, I just end up heading one way or the other anyway.  So yeah, this is me pondering, and this is what Scott gets for having me do the next entry on the blog.  Discuss...