How To Positively Discipline a Child
Lessons from Dr. Jane Nelsen's "Positive Discipline" for dealing with overgrown children throwing tantrums
Comrades: Positive discipline builds strong children, families, and societies.
“Positive Discipline” by Jane Nelsen is the best parenting book I have encountered. In true samizdat form, she first self-published in 1981 and sold over 80,000 copies. When a big publishing house took notice in 1987, she sold millions more. Nelsen deserves admiration not only for writing books that have guided countless families around the world, but also as a matriarch of her own: mother of 7, grandmother of 22, and great-grandmother of 11.
As I was reading the book, I was struck by how much of her common sense has disappeared from modern American families. Subversion of parenting has raised several generations of overgrown children who never learned how to become well balanced adults. They were never taught discipline, resilience, and boundaries at home or in school.
There are many factors driving this trend. Public schools have deteriorated Many fathers abandoned their families. Many mothers deployed AWFL helicopter parenting. No-fault divorce, welfare, and alimony incentivized splits. 30% of American children now grow up in single-parent households and I’d estimate that half of the two-parent households are not imparting Positive Discipline. We are grappling with the collateral damage everywhere.
The 5 pillars of Positive Discipline are:
Help children feel a sense of connection: Belonging and significance
Mutually respectful and encouraging: Kind and firm at the same time
Effective long-term: Considers what the child is thinking, feeling, learning, and deciding about himself and his world – and what to do in the future to survive or to thrive
Teaches important social and life skills: Respect, concern for others, problem solving, and cooperation as well as the skills to contribute to the home, school or larger community
Invites children to discover how capable they are: Encourages the constructive use of personal power and autonomy
How many adult leftists have acquired the Significant 7 Perceptions and Skills from Positive Discipline?
I am confident of my personal capability when faced with challenges.
I believe I am personally significant and make meaningful contributions.
I have a positive influence over my life; I take responsibility for my choices.
I have strong intrapersonal skills and I manage my emotions through self-awareness and self-discipline.
I have strong interpersonal skills and I am able to effectively communicate, negotiate, and empathize with others.
I am able to adapt with flexibility and integrity, I have strong systemic skills.
I have well developed judgment skills and able to make decisions with integrity.
The 4 R’s of punishment reactions are the foundations of “The REEEsistance” and Communism.
Resentment
Revenge
Rebellion
Retreat
The book offers advice that could be applied to adult leftists the same way it is recommended to children.
4 steps for winning cooperation:
Express understanding for child’s feelings
Show empathy without condoning
Share your feelings and perceptions
Invite the child to focus on a solution
Showing the logical ties between actions and consequences is invaluable:
Related
Respectful
Reasonable
Revealed in advance
Coddling at universities and schools are the opposite of Positive Discipline:
Curiosity questions:
What were you trying to accomplish?
How do you feel about what happened?
What do you think caused it to happen?
What did you learn from this?
How can you use in the future what you have learned?
What ideas do you have for solutions now?
What are you going to do about it?
If you asked these questions to campus protestors, you’d get a bunch of blank stares and unintelligible screaming:
TLDR: We forgot how to say no.
Is homeschooling the answer?
What are the best discipline techniques you have used or experienced? Sound off in the comments. We are lucky baby Yulia is a jolly angel, so we haven’t had to discipline her much. She has inherited a mischievous streak, which I am quite proud of ;)
Excellent article Yuri!
Teach your children to question authority by being a critical thinker might be something to add...especially for their ability to "survive" and "thrive" in today's world.
Excellent Yuri, thank you. Id like to point out that many parents sedate their children with cell phones and videos. This is from toddlerhood on. On the doctor’s office they’re given their parent’s cell phone so they don’t have to focus on their worry about getting a shot. These kids are growing up with no internal resources to handle stress nor are they developing the social skills to have a simple conversation with an adult or even their own peers. These children will become the 30 year old unemployed basement dwellers playing video games and watching porn all day. Parents please keep the phones out of your child’s hands!