A Practical Guide to Parenting

Practical Guide to Parenting using Positive Discipline

In the 1920s Alfred Adler has started to expand on his own philosophy of parenting and bringing children up where he focused immensely on our need to belong, on treating children respectfully, while simultaneously stating that pampering children was not encouraging to them and resulted in social and behavioural problems. Many years and discussions later we are learning from Dr Jane Nelsen, the writer of the series of books on the concept of “positive discipline”.  

Discipline is often based on several false premises such as: “to make children do better, we first have to make them feel worse” or “It is more important to make children “pay” for what they have done, than to learn from it”.  What can we actually do instead to make our children more confident, less traumatized and more included in society?

1. Being firm but kind  

2. Being respectful to children  

3. Offering choices

4. Learning from mistakes

5. Giving power to children

6. Following up by logical consequences

7. Connecting with the child, calming them down and then correcting them

8. Validate feelings of children

9. Listen to children

It is important to understand that children benefit by having opportunities to feel good about themselves, by being in situations where they make meaningful contributions and develop sense of belonging and significance.

When children misbehave, they usually have a mistaken belief about how to gain sense of belonging.

Undue attention - I want to keep you busy and have special attention.  

Sometimes children feel they belong only when you pay constant attention to them, and give them special service. If they don’t have your attention, they do not feel significant, and that is not a nice feeling.

Tool: Notice them and involve them usefully but without giving them special treatment! You can explain to your child that you love them and you are busy at the moment but will spend time with them later, and then plan some special time. Your “later” can be in 10 minutes, 1 hour, in the evening, evaluate the situation.

Let the child deal with feelings of frustration and keep repeating it until they understand what they can expects and learn how to self-regulate emotions and delay gratification.

‍

Misguided power - I want to be in charge.

Imagine if you want to go to the park and your mommy says no.  

You want candy? No.  

Screen time? No.  

Mess up all your toys and write on walls? No.

Doesn’t it feel frustrating? The child can start misbehaving because they want to be in control of their own life. There is a power struggle and it’s on you as a parent to handle it.

Tool: Let them help, give limited choices and opportunities to make decisions. Don’t fight or get into a mindset of winning or losing an argument, or making them listen to you with the famous “Because I said so” sentence.

Give them limited choices to decide and show them trust by being kind and firm. Develop mutual respect and get help from your child to set reasonable limits. Make them feel included in this process.

‍

Revenge - I want to get even.

Tool: Validate and listen to the feelings of your child. Build trust and use reflective listening.  

Acknowledge how you are feeling as well, apologize if you feel like you have hurt them. Lead by example, encourage strengths and show that you care.

*Bullying is a common behavior of a revengeful child. Bullying is not only about the bully, but also about the bullied and the observers. It commonly happens because of the need to belong and has to be addressed from an early age.

‍

Assumed inadequacy - I give up.

Tool: Sometimes when we want the best for our child we tend to overdo things for them, or maybe raise our expectations a little bit too high. This can feel frustrating and create feelings of inadequacy. What you can do is encourage any positive attempt and make tasks easier until child experiences success. Also do your best to set up opportunities for success and build on his interests. Make them understand that it is ok to make mistakes or to feel uncomfortable.

Sometimes it can be beneficial to put the achievement as a secondary goal (even in school- talk to the teacher) and to focus on overall sense of belonging, significance and the importance of trying.

Kids are constantly exploring and expanding their limits, both physically and emotionally. When kids are in the “terrible two’s,” they’re going to be doing things that were previously unacceptable not just for you, but for them. It’s a part of growing up, and you letting your child feel bad about It is not the way. Instead, use positive discipline to help your child understand that it’s fine to make mistakes, explore and learn from this. In the long run, your child will learn from their experiences, and when they do, they’ll be able to look to you as a role model and a confidant.

‍

• Distract and Redirect – Children under the age of 3 do not understand “no” in the way we think they do. This is a very abstract and confusing concept, and in complete opposition to the developmental need of children. Toddlers are experiencing individuation, separations, learning to be independent. This is why it works better to redirect and distract rather than saying no.

• Validate feelings- I understand you are upset and it is ok to feel in a certain way. Once you calm down, we can look for a solution together.

• Let’s teach them what to do with all these feelings we so often deem as unacceptable!

• Provide a choice: “I see you are upset today. Would you like to play briefly with cars or planes before we start your breakfast? Let’s put the timer for play time and then we can go on with our plans.

• Talk with your partner, family, and child care provider to establish some ground rules that everyone will abide by because all children, even infants, need regular discipline.

• Follow through and be true to your words.

‍