People often have negative thoughts when they hear the word ‘discipline.’ They have this perspective that puts discipline in a black cloud. The confusion in our world today is that people think there are only two types of parenting: authoritative and permissive. Authoritative parenting is parenting where, you the parent, over-power your child. It’s a ‘because I said so’ type of style and you are in charge of you kids. Permissive parenting is the polar opposite of authoritarian parenting. This type of parenting is where your kids are in charge. They walk all over you and have control over every situation. You are lacking any sense of structure or boundaries. There is actually a third type of parenting that gets over-looked most of the time, Positive Discipline parenting. This type of parenting is somewhere in the middle of authoritarian and permissive. It allows you and your kids to create a mutual respect relationship where you work together. You might be asking yourself, ‘well aren’t I supposed to be the parent and isn’t it me who is supposed to be in charge?’ The answer to these questions is yes, but in a more democratic light. You have to remember that your kids are human beings and are just like you with feelings, opinions, needs for attention and power. Your job as parent is to guide, teach and train. The definition of discipline is to train. Therefore, if you see a well-behaved child you know they have been disciplined. This is a positive thing and not negative. There is a huge difference between a child who is punished than disciplined. A child who is punished is being parented in a more authoritarian light. Their mis-behaviors are treated with punishment which causes the child to feel blame, shame, and pain. The consequence is unrelated to the behaviour leaving the child feeling bad about themselves and not learning from the situation. Our goals as parents when we have children behaving inappropriately is to teach them to learn from it. This is discipline. This is what we are all striving for. We giving our child freedom with limits. We are all capable of changing our ways, it just takes time, commitment and practice. It won’t happen over night, but it is possible. Once you admit that we are part of the problem you will be on your way! We have to see that our kids need us to meet their needs and if we aren’t they will act up. That if we can change our perspective and ways, we can help them learn from their misbehaviour. We can see that they’re misbehaving because there are places we need to work on to meet their needs. That when they act up, we are not fulfilling their needs of power and attention that all humans are hard-wired to need. We can create a more positive environment where your children feel safe and secure to make mistakes. Where they feel they have a say in their day and in their world. Jane Nelson is the author of the book Positive Discipline and founder of this parenting method. Click the link and order it today! It will be one of the best reads to help you switch your parenting paradigm! I can coach you through your changes and help you get back to the joy of parenting and stop the constant battling! Visit my packages page for more details!
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