Positive discipline?

[ijack]

Anyone care to elaborate? I read the website linked, but it didn't give many concrete examples. Can anyone explained exactly how it is used in certain situations?
Thanks!

[h]

For us it translates to a lot of discussing expectations and the reasons behind them, giving choices (do you want to brush your teeth now or in 5 minutes?), presenting if/then situations (if you clean up your toys, then you may watch your show), praising positive behavior, reward charts, taking a break when behavior gets out of hand, and natural consequences (you misused that toy when you threw it across the room, so now I am taking it away for a while). We also take away privileges (generally the much coveted screen time) for major transgressions, but I am not sure that is really positive discipline--though it works very well for us. We don't spank, we try not to yell, we don't send our kids to their rooms, we don't do traditional time outs, and we try not to impose consequences or punishments that aren't connected to the offense. But honestly, the no spanking/physical punishment and minimal yelling is the big issue for me. I don't have a problem with reasonable time outs if they prove effective.

[celiacmom]

We practice gentle parenting which includes positive discipline and for me it means not just saying "no". I like to redirect instead and explain in 3-5 words. Also choices are huge!
I think the biggest this is not hitting your children or being harsh with them. Also very important is respecting their needs and wants while keeping them safe.

[Deleted]

Positive discipline is a non-punitive, non-rewarding discipline system. The basic idea is to establish and enforce limits in a household--a lot of people assume that PD is some kind of loosey-goosey anything goes sort of system where the parents have no backbone. That's not the case. Rules are enforced firmly, but kindly and respectfully, and the goal is not to manipulate, scare, or shame children into good behavior but to encourage them, correct them, and help them learn how to communicate effectively and how to solve and manage their problems.

I would disagree with Hens that reward charts are a part of positive discipline. PD is as much about not rewarding as it is about not punishing (a reward is the flip side of the punishment coin--"If you eat your broccoli, you can have dessert!" is a more appealingly worded "If you don't eat your broccoli, you can't have dessert").

Some ways I use PD at home with our 2.5 year old... at this age, like Hens said, it's really about redirection and offering choices (my favorite tool of all time is "Do you want to do it by yourself or do you need my help?"--I use this at least two dozen times a day, I swear, and it's a helpful but respectful way to get DD to do something she needs to do while still respecting her, not forcing, and letting her know she has power to make choices). We might take a break or have a change in scenery when behavior gets bad like she said, but we don't do time-outs as punishment. For example, if she is screaming in a restaurant and disrupting others, I would remove her from the situation but rather than yell or give her a time out in the car, we might take a walk around in the parking lot and I'll try to help her identify the emotions she's feeling so we can both understand why she was acting out and try to come up with a solution for how to make things better next time. Will she fully understand a conversation like that at this age? No, but the change of scene is usually enough of a distraction to stop the behavior, and it sets the precedent for how we will continue to deal with problems as she gets older.

I hope this makes sense. PD is hard to explain fully in a message board post. One other thing I want to add is that it should not be confused with permissive parenting or positive reinforcement. It is a system of discipline and that does include establishing and enforcing limits and allowing natural consequences to happen (in some cases, obviously we don't let her learn the natural consequence of running out into the street on her own) rather than using arbitrary punishment or reward to try to control behavior.

[Deleted]

By the way if you have any questions about how a PD parent might handle a particular situation I am happy to answer. I am by no means a PD expert, but I will respond to the best of my ability. I only have personal experience using PD on my 2.5 year old but I have taken classes and spent lots of time chatting with a friend of mine who is a certified PD educator and has a 10, 7, and 4 year old.

[ijack]

It sounds very interesting and some of it we definitely do (lots and lots of choices, don't hit (well besides the one time I'm infamous for)), but we do TO.
Right now our biggest issues with our 4.5yo is attitude. She is constantly whining and anytime she doesn't get her way she throws herself on the ground and sobs. It's like living with a pms-ing teenager and I don't know what to do about it. Right now I ask her to go to her room until she can use a nicer tone or be more pleasant to be around, but we're not making any headway. I do offer lots of praise when she asks for things nicely or uses a nice tone/words, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in.
Any ideas?

[h]

FWIW, I agree that reward charts aren't necessarily positive discipline--and taking away privileges, which we sometimes do with our 5 year old, certainly isn't. We do that stuff because it sometimes works for us where other techniques have failed, and we are more comfortable with it than many other approaches. It's not an all the time thing or the first strategy we turn to, but we have used a reward chart a couple times in the past when we were trying to motivate our oldest to do a specific thing (going to bed at night) and having no success otherwise. It is close enough to praising positive behavior for me personally to be okay with it, but I am obviously not a rigid adherent of positive discipline and therefore should probably stay out of the discussion. We just generally approach discipline from a positive standpoint--no spanking, no yelling, trying to avoid being punitive or saying no without reason, lots it explaining limits and presenting choices, etc. with our 2.5 year old that translates to distracting, redirecting, explaining, and implementing natural consequences. With our 5 year old it obviously looks a little different.

[Deleted]

I think you are doing the right things. The one thing I hear repeated most often about whining is that as a parent you have to completely ignore it, and that includes not even verbally responding to it in a lot of cases. So, for example, you might work out with her during a peaceful, non-whining time, a visual cue that you will give her when she is whining so that she will know you are not going to respond. You can let her know in advance that whining and sobbing is an ugly way to communicate and that you will be willing to listen to her when she can communicate with you respectfully and politely, but if she whines you will cover your ears and remove yourself from her company (or ask her to remove herself from your company) until she is pleasant to be around. With toddlers and preschoolers it's often more effective to communicate with as few words as possible which is why I suggest you walking away from her rather than sending her to her room... but obviously that is not always possible, especially when you have another kid to look after. Anyway the idea is to give as little of a response as possible because any attention, even negative attention, in this case is reinforcing the behavior.

Another idea might be to try to carve out special time just for her. A lot of kids whine or otherwise demand special attention because they feel like they are only important if their parent is giving them their undivided attention, so then they demand that attention in annoying negative ways. So maybe you can make a plan with her to do one special just-the-two-of-you activity a week, or whatever you think might work to give her a little extra time and see if it can help reduce the amount of time she spends demanding negative attention. (I don't mean to assume you don't give your daughter enough time--it's just one suggestion in case you think this may be an issue. I know I am seriously freaked out about giving enough quality attention to both of my kids once the second one comes along.)

I hope this helps... I have been reading about whining lately since DD is just starting to figure out how effective it is in getting attention and we are trying to nip it in the bud!

[Deleted]

Dec 3, 2012 10:32:13 GMT -5 h said:

FWIW, I agree that reward charts aren't necessarily positive discipline--and taking away privileges, which we sometimes do with our 5 year old, certainly isn't. We do that stuff because it sometimes works for us where other techniques have failed, and we are more comfortable with it than many other approaches. It's not an all the time thing or the first strategy we turn to, but we have used a reward chart a couple times in the past when we were trying to motivate our oldest to do a specific thing (going to bed at night) and having no success otherwise. It is close enough to praising positive behavior for me personally to be okay with it, but I am obviously not a rigid adherent of positive discipline and therefore should probably stay out of the discussion. We just generally approach discipline from a positive standpoint--no spanking, no yelling, trying to avoid being punitive or saying no without reason, lots it explaining limits and presenting choices, etc. with our 2.5 year old that translates to distracting, redirecting, explaining, and implementing natural consequences. With our 5 year old it obviously looks a little different.

I think that's fair and is not a reason you should stay out of the discussion! I didn't mean to call you out; I just wanted to point out about reward charts since PD is so often lumped with permissive parenting and reward-only parenting and I don't want that misconception to spread. The non-reward side of PD is a lot less well known so I just wanted to mention it.

Honestly, I sometimes go back and forth on reward charts.... not as an overall system but for small things, like potty training (which we are about to attempt later this month). I understand and agree with the theory behind not rewarding, and I don't intend to use rewards as a parent, but I really do see some situations where they would be helpful and I know I will be very tempted to use them, especially as my DD grows and discipline becomes more challenging.

[ijack]

carmen, I think you're right about me spending more time with her. When I get home from work it's very much a rush to the finish line and since she's the oldest she's often the one that can play by herself. At points we've picked up chapter books to read together, maybe we'll do that again.
I also know it's because her dad is travelling more right now and he's the "nice" parent and she has a hard time dealing with him being gone. I know she's sad and it sucks, but at the same time I don't want to listen to her sob all the time.

[pamela]

As far as change of scenery/environment/going on a walk during a restaurant tantrum - what if that is exactly what he wants so by doing that, I'm rewarding the tantrum?

[Deleted]

Dec 3, 2012 11:18:44 GMT -5 pamela said:

As far as change of scenery/environment/going on a walk during a restaurant tantrum - what if that is exactly what he wants so by doing that, I'm rewarding the tantrum?

I'm a beginner at parenting as well as positive discipline, but I know a big part of the books I read on the subject was being aware of what a child is capable of and developmental stages. I can't really expect my 1.5 year old to sit through waiting for a restaurant meal without some kind of distraction. It's unrealistic and sets him up to fail. Therefore, I would try to go on the walk before the tantrum hits rather than "rewarding" the inevitable freak out if I try to tie him to a high chair for an extra 20 minutes waiting for the food. As a kid gets older, they can move to more age-appropriate behaviour - maybe coloring or playing I-spy rather than needing to move. And then eventually being able to just converse rather than needing to be entertained. But expecting my toddler to behave how I want him to behave when he's 10 is just going to drive us both nuts.

[Deleted]

Dec 3, 2012 11:18:44 GMT -5 pamela said:

As far as change of scenery/environment/going on a walk during a restaurant tantrum - what if that is exactly what he wants so by doing that, I'm rewarding the tantrum?

Does it matter? In this case the child is disturbing other diners and that is NEVER okay. I don't think it is a reasonable option to let the kid carry on in a restaurant and disturb everyone else's meal. I wouldn't take her out to the parking lot to play games or watch videos on my phone, just to calm her down enough to discuss why her behavior wasn't acceptable and come up with a plan for how to behave in the future.

I ignore tantrums until the cows come home inside my own house, but in public your options are more limited because you need to show courtesy to others in that context. As long as you don't give into tantrums as a habit I don't think it is a big deal.

[Deleted]

Dec 3, 2012 11:23:29 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Dec 3, 2012 11:18:44 GMT -5 pamela said:

As far as change of scenery/environment/going on a walk during a restaurant tantrum - what if that is exactly what he wants so by doing that, I'm rewarding the tantrum?

I'm a beginner at parenting as well as positive discipline, but I know a big part of the books I read on the subject was being aware of what a child is capable of and developmental stages. I can't really expect my 1.5 year old to sit through waiting for a restaurant meal without some kind of distraction. It's unrealistic and sets him up to fail. Therefore, I would try to go on the walk before the tantrum hits rather than "rewarding" the inevitable freak out if I try to tie him to a high chair for an extra 20 minutes waiting for the food. As a kid gets older, they can move to more age-appropriate behaviour - maybe coloring or playing I-spy rather than needing to move. And then eventually being able to just converse rather than needing to be entertained. But expecting my toddler to behave how I want him to behave when he's 10 is just going to drive us both nuts.

:Y: :Y: to this, too. Setting up for success is a huge part of parenting a toddler.

[h]

Dec 3, 2012 10:50:01 GMT -5 @carmensandiego said:

Honestly, I sometimes go back and forth on reward charts.... not as an overall system but for small things, like potty training (which we are about to attempt later this month). I understand and agree with the theory behind not rewarding, and I don't intend to use rewards as a parent, but I really do see some situations where they would be helpful and I know I will be very tempted to use them, especially as my DD grows and discipline becomes more challenging.

For me the context matters a lot. I agree that it's important to avoid permissive or reward-based parenting and therefore don't like the idea of doing a reward chart for behavior that a kid can easily choose to do or not do. But I think it can be a helpful way for them to track their own progress when it comes to something that may be genuinely difficult for them. I don't have a problem rewarding something that is actually hard work as opposed to something that I feel my kid should simply be doing with relatively little effort.

For example, DS1 has always had a really difficult time falling asleep on his own and staying in his own bed. When we discussed ways we could help him learn to do this, it was very clear that he was frustrated with himself on that front and genuinely struggling. Having a reward chart to track his progress was more helpful to him than anything else we tried, I think largely because he needed that visual representation of the progress he was making. And tracking progress and working toward a goal is something I am happy to instill in my kids. It feels different to me than rewarding them with candy for getting into their carseat or something like that.

[Deleted]

Dec 3, 2012 11:30:46 GMT -5 h said:

For example, DS1 has always had a really difficult time falling asleep on his own and staying in his own bed. When we discussed ways we could help him learn to do this, it was very clear that he was frustrated with himself on that front and genuinely struggling. Having a reward chart to track his progress was more helpful to him than anything else we tried, I think largely because he needed that visual representation of the progress he was making. And tracking progress and working toward a goal is something I am happy to instill in my kids. It feels different to me than rewarding them with candy for getting into their carseat or something like that.

And I think this is completely different from how most parents would use a reward chart. It is a tool to track progress as opposed to a bribe which I think entirely changes the meaning of the chart.

[schrodinger]

Dec 3, 2012 11:30:46 GMT -5 h said:

For example, DS1 has always had a really difficult time falling asleep on his own and staying in his own bed. When we discussed ways we could help him learn to do this, it was very clear that he was frustrated with himself on that front and genuinely struggling. Having a reward chart to track his progress was more helpful to him than anything else we tried, I think largely because he needed that visual representation of the progress he was making. And tracking progress and working toward a goal is something I am happy to instill in my kids. It feels different to me than rewarding them with candy for getting into their carseat or something like that.

I agree that reward charts have their place and purpose. SD1 has a lot of ADHD traits. Her therapist and a lot of ADHD books suggest behavior charts because they are more tangible and provide more feedback. We use them to "reward" SDs with free time in the evenings. They know that once their chart is complete with all the steps they need to do at night (homework, piano, brush teeth, bath, etc), then they have earned free time.

We do allow them to earn extras for good table manners. If they are caught using bad manners (using fingers for non-finger food is our big one), they have to get up from the table, remove a magnet from the chart, then return to the table. The act of having them step away from the table really helps us reset/refocus them, and its been a huge help for us. But again, we settled into the reward chart after trying a number of other discipline methods. This has been the only method that hasn't left both of us frustrated.