positive-discipline

Positive Discipline Starts With The Parents- Part 2

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In our last blog post, we gave our first three steps to practicing positive discipline. In this post, we explore four more ways to discipline children effectively.

1. Give Attention To Good Behavior, Not Bad Behavior

Children often act out to get attention. Sometimes, it pays to ignore your child when he/she acts out. Ignore the behaviors you don’t want to see more of and give attention to the behaviors you want them to display more often. Katharine C. Kersey, the author of “The 101s: A Guide to Positive Discipline,” calls this the “Rain on the grass, not on the weeds” principle. In the midst of tantrums or whining, play deaf or walk away and your child will soon learn that those behaviors don’t catch your attention. This is a way to practice positive discipline and teach your children to communicate better.

2. Redirect

Instead of trying to stop bad behavior, try redirecting your child’s attention to good behavior. Kids who constantly hear “no” or “don’t” tend to eventually tune those directives out. So instead of telling your child what not to do, Kersey recommends instead, offering a positive behavior to replace the misbehavior. For instance, a child acting up in a grocery store could be redirected to helping pick out grocery items. A child running around a swimming pool might be challenged to walk “as if on marshmallows.” Be creative with your children.

3. Exploit the “energy drain”

Any parent who has dealt with a tantrum or a whining child knows that parenting can be exhausting. Fay calls this the “energy drain” and says you can use it to your advantage. For instance, you might defuse a sibling confrontation by saying, “wow, you need to take that fight with your brother somewhere else, because listening to that could cause me a big energy drain and I don’t think I’ll have the energy to take you to get dessert after dinner.” What will your child care more about, getting ice cream after dinner or fighting with their sibling?

4. Stay Away From Bribing

Sometimes bribing seems like the easiest option in a moment of desperation, but is not the best long-term solution for your children. Fay warns that bribing sends the wrong message. What kids hear when we offer a reward for good behavior is “you don’t want to be very good and you have to be paid off,” says Fay.

The most important rearward to give your child is quality time. That should be freely given. Children need us and they need our undivided attention at times. Fay recommends spending AT LEAST 15 minutes of one-on-one time with your children a day. It’s very important for children to know they are loved and to hear it often. Love is the best medicine.

discipline

Positive Discipline Starts with The Parents- Part 1

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Some parents are lucky enough to have angel children who never misbehave but the majority of us have to sometimes put up with thrown toys, screams and slammed doors in our faces. The way we handle these situations, behave ourselves and discipline our children really matters. Here are some tips that we’ve gathered from a few experts.

Understand The Meaning Behind The Behavior

As parents, it’s our job to be selfless and to be cognitive of what’s going on with our children. Taking the time to really know our children gives us the opportunity to understand why they are acting certain ways. Naomi Aldort, the author of “Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves,” says that children are born wanting to behave well. If they seem to miss the mark, there’s a valid reason for it. “The most important [thing] is to realize that whatever a child does, we may label as bad, [but really] the child is doing the best he can. It’s our job as parents to find out why [he is] doing it,” says Aldort. “Once we know the valid root of the behavior, we can easily remove the cause or heal the emotions, and the child won’t be driven to behave in that way anymore.”

Ask yourself if your child is acting out for a certain reason. Have they been getting enough attention? Are they acting out to be noticed? Is there a certain correction you can make to your own behavior that might positively affect your child? “A lot of what we expect of children is unreasonable,” says Aldort.

Be Willing To Adjust Your Own Behavior

Our children pick up on our behaviors. It’s often hard to keep calm in the heat pf the moment but how we react to situations is often how our children will grow up to react to situations. Dr. Katharine Kersey, author of “The 101s: A Guide To Positive Discipline,” says that parents need to model the types of behavior they want their kids to emulate. Leading by example is very powerful. ” We should not do anything in front of [our children] that we don’t want them to do,” she says.

Be Consistent

Consistency is everything in parenting. Being consistency is very healthy for our children. Aldort says that parents often overlook certain behaviors and hope it will pass. That is a lazy perspective. It will not pass. If your child bites another child, for instance, hold their hand and them their behavior was unacceptable. If they continue, it’s time to remove them from the situation and handle it.

Sometimes a child might try to test the limits by arguing with the rules. When this happens, Fay suggests neutralizing negotiations by repeating one simple mantra as often as necessary: “I love you too much to argue.”

Let’s all strive to understand our children, exemplify positive behavior and be consistent in with our parenting styles and discipline patterns. Stay tuned for part 2 with even more advice on utilizing positive discipline in the home.

12 Things To Teach Your Children In Their Younger Years

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As parents, we do our best to teach our children about the world and about life. Certain life skills are useful throughout life. Here are 12 things that your children will someday be very grateful that you taught them.

  1. To Be Active

being-active

Expose your children to a healthy lifestyle early on that will lead them to love being outdoors and being on their feet. Teaching good, active habits will assure they don’t turn into a couch potato (hopefully). Teach them that they want to take care of themselves to live a long, healthy and happy life.

  1. Dental Hygiene

dental-hygeine

Did you know that daily flossing can add 6 years to your life? Dental hygiene is extremely important. Get them in the habit NOW. Don’t assume they’ll one day make a habit of it if they don’t start now.

  1. To Face Their Fears

feace-your-fears

Life is not always a picnic. Sometimes we have to do scary things. Teach your children to take on challenges and have the confidence to face their fears. Being afraid of life is lonely and filled with anxiety.

  1. To Be A Reader

reading

There is nothing better for the brain than reading. It is such a valuable skill to have. Always teach your kids to be readers and to have an imagination. Read to them and tell them stories.

  1. How To Have Fun

Beautiful girl having fun at beach

Life should be enjoyed. Teach your kids that it doesn’t have to be serious business all the time. Teach them to live, laugh and love and to have a good time doing it. Hard work is of course, important but kids should know that happy memories are crucial as well.

  1. To Move On

moving-on

Teach them not to dwell on things, not to sweat the small stuff and to learn to eventually move on from hard things or mistakes or things that haunt them. This is never an easy task but dwelling on things can destroy people.

  1. How To Cook

how-to-cook

You either had someone in your life who taught you how to cook and you’re eternally grateful or you wish you had someone who did that for you because ramen gets old after a while and you’re sick of burning meals or over seasoning. Be the parent your child can be grateful to.

  1. Internet Safety
internet-safety

safety first concept with blue key on computer keyboard

The internet can be a scary thing for parents. Teach your kids not to accept a friend request from the creepy guy you don’t know or to accept a chat from someone claiming to be someone who goes to their school. Teach them to only use the internet for good.

  1. Hard Work

hard-work

Teach them to be a hard worker. Spoiling them constantly and never making them work for anything will be a disservice to them.

  1. To Be Themselves

be-yourself

Living a life trying to be someone else is exhausting. What makes this world such a beautiful place is that we are unique and have different things to offer. Teach them to embrace that.

  1. To Stand Up For Themselves

Stand Up For Yourself words on a sign held by a single man or person in a crowd to illustrate being a rebel or going on strike to protect your rights and justice

This can be hard at times but it would be heartbreaking if people walked all over your kids their entire lives. Teach them for not only stand for something but to also stand up for themselves and believe in themselves.

  1. To Be A Friend

friend

Teach them to be selfless and to be the kind of person people want to be around. Friendships are special and we want our children to create meaningful relationships.

Someday your children will be so grateful for the things you taught them. Then they will use what they learned to teach their own children someday and the cycle will continue. Spread goodness. Happy Parenting!