Being Kind and Firm When it Comes to Discipline

When you ask parents what the most challenging thing is about parenting, many will say discipline and managing their child’s behavior. A lot of parents struggle to find effective ways to discipline their kids.

There’s increasing evidence that harsh emotional and physical discipline methods are harmful to children’s development and are not effective in teaching long term self-control. So how do you define and stick to limits, and encourage self control and discipline in a positive way?

We love the strategy from Positive Discipline called “Kind And Firm”. When you are kind and firm at the same time, you validate your child’s feelings and also remain firm about your limit. Using the word “AND” instead of “BUT” is an important part of this strategy. It can be a challenge to find the right balance between the two and to remember to phrase things this way, so practicing this approach is really important. When you can change your language and approach, even in the smallest ways, you can influence your child’s behavior positively. Positivediscipline.com provides some great examples, such as:

- “You don’t want to go to bed, AND it’s your bedtime. Would you like one story or two stories as soon as your pajamas are on?” In this case, you’ve validated you child’s emotions but still held firm on the limit. Providing the choice of number of stories lets your child feel more in control of the situation — if she can’t choose to stay awake, she can at least choose the number of books she gets.

- “You don’t want to brush your teeth, AND we’ll do it together. Want to race?” In this case, you’ve validated your child’s feelings and used redirection to help them complete the task by making it more fun.

You can read more about the Kind And Firm strategy here: http://bit.ly/kindandfirmparenting

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