Positive Parenting and Discipline. By: Nancy Alvarez

Becoming parents is one of the most important roles in our lives. With this comes an enormous responsibility to educate and teach our children everything there is to learn about life. Which can be very satisfying, but at the same time very scary! Nobody explains to you that the responsibility we have to raise our children is not easy, that it involves many things. One of them includes discipline.

Contrary to what we may have in mind which is discipline, the goal of disciplining should be to raise a child to follow the rules and respect others, but not based on fear, but because he is being taught that it is the right thing to do. By handling discipline in this way, we are training individuals who will grow up to be respectful, considerate, empathetic, orderly and self-confident and who will apply this in the relationships they form as adults.

Positive parenting is a parenting philosophy that uses strategic methods based on the idea that our relationship with our children is the most important thing and focuses on how we can help our children develop self-discipline. Positive parenting IS NOT not having consequences for bad behavior, much less not having limits in place for children. It is completely the opposite, positive parenting is teaching our children that there are healthy limits that we must follow, but doing so with respect, love and affection.

The following are some ways on how to discipline, and help our children develop self-discipline, using positive parenting.

Set limits

Establishing limits or rules is extremely important in our relationship with our children. Boundaries teach children important skills that will help them succeed in all areas of life. Rules help children with self-discipline and also help them learn to make healthy decisions. In the process of setting and following boundaries it helps us feel respected and that our needs are being met.

If you feel frustrated because your child insists on playing with you as soon as he gets up, but you're still half awake and you haven't had your cup of coffee. Set a rule so that you can sit and drink that coffee for 10 minutes, before you are ready to play with him/her. What is your child going to protest or complain about? Probably. But he will understand that you have needs and will learn to respect them. We will be better parents if our needs are met first and you are giving him an excellent example of how to advocate for his own needs in a relationship.

Build connection to gain cooperation

Children need to feel a connection with the adult to listen to them. And this is a good thing, because we wouldn't want our children to listen to just anyone, telling them what to do. But at the same time, it means that if we want them to obey us and listen to what we have to say, it is important that we spend time with our children developing this connection first. This is the problem with punishment, that if we don't take the opportunity to go with the child and form that connection first and understand the reason for their behavior; and in return we only want to scold and punish, the child feels the disconnection and this will make him less willing to listen to us and do what we are asking of him. Because we are not taking the time to talk and understand, but we do want the child to do it with us. Let's model how we should interact, creating a connection with our children.

Let's be firm, but with love and affection

We can be firm and hold our children to high expectations, but be loving and caring. In fact, it is much more effective to get our children to listen to us and obey us if we do it with love, rather than resorting to yelling and punishment.

It is important to decide what rules are important to us as parents, communicate these rules to our children in a way that they understand, and be consistent in reinforcing the rules as well. Thus, our children learn that having rules and limits is part of daily life, and this will help them as they grow and become aware of the rules that exist at school, at work, in society.

Let's avoid embarrassing

Let's not use the following phrases:

"Why don't you ever listen? It's not that difficult."

“You're doing poorly in school, I thought you were smart.”

All of these phrases cause the child to feel bad about himself and internalize it. This has a negative effect on the child's self-esteem. Every time we attack our children with our words in order to shame the child, we cause deep wounds in how they view themselves. And we are also teaching them that it is okay for them to use their words to hurt others. We can disapprove of the conduct or behavior, not the child. We can comment on the child's behavior, and explain what is appropriate or not, and what we expect of the child, without creating a feeling of shame.

Let us model respect, with our words and with our actions. Our children look to us as a role model.

Let's practice empathy

There is always a valid reason why children behave a certain way. Maybe they are hungry, they are tired, they are frustrated. Or maybe they are reacting to how we are behaving towards them.

If we can understand the reason for bad behavior, it will be much easier to have empathy for our children and respond with kindness. Let's take the time to understand why, and it is important to get down to the level of each child so that they feel valued and understood. By practicing empathy with our children, they learn to have empathy with themselves and others.

Let's use positive reinforcement

It's easy to notice bad behavior, and focus on only the bad. But it is more beneficial to focus on the good things the child is doing so that he or she knows that it is appropriate and expected behavior. Let's not react to the bad with shouting and anger because it means giving attention to the negative. Let's be firm, direct and to the point in saying that their behavior was wrong and guide our children to more positive behavior and celebrate when they do something good.

If we communicate to our children that we notice their effort in doing good, and we celebrate them when they pay attention, behave well, when they help, this will help the child maintain a positive self-identity and encourage them to want to do more good because they are being given attention for the good things they do.

Let's focus on being more positive parents.

The goal of positive parenting is to create and maintain a relationship with our children, while raising individuals who will do good in this world. The best thing we can do as parents is develop skills in our children that will help them succeed as they grow and learn from their surroundings.