If you are feeling like your parenting game could use a spring cleaning, learning some Positive Discipline parenting tools can be just the thing you need to reduce stress & increase your happiness & connection within your family.
“A child needs encouragement like a plant needs water.” – Rudolf Dreikurs
I’ve talked about the importance of building resilience skills in your children. It’s a building block of your child’s self esteem & confidence. In order for your child to develop this skill, you need to empower your kids & avoid pampering. Parents make a mistake when they pamper in the name of love.
Below are some Positive Discipline skills to both empower & encourage your child and build those all important resilience skills.
Empower your Kids
Share control with children so they can develop skills to have power over their own lives.
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Teach Life Skills
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Focus on Solutions Together
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Have faith in your children
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Let go (in small steps)
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Increase self awareness by asking: “How do you feel? What do you think? How does this affect what you want in your life?”
Encourage Your Kids
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A misbehaving child is a discouraged child. When children feel encouraged, misbehavior disappears.
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Encourage by creating a connection before correction. Generally, when a child is overly reactive this means that their body is in some kind of “physiological state”. Creating this time for connection allows both you and the child to calm down before making any corrections.
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Ask your child if they need some time to calm down in their “Positive Time Out” space. A place that is designated for them to relax, calm down and decompress. Ask them if they’d like you to join them.
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Ask them if they need a hug? Or, tell them that you’d like a hug because you are feeling emotional. Sometimes, just the act of them hugging you allows them to calm down too.
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Validate their emotions. Tell them you see they’re upset, or sad, etc. Allow them to have that time to feel their emotion before discussing the behavior.
Avoid Pampering
Parents make a mistake when they pamper in the name of love.
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Pampering creates weakness because children develop the belief that others should do everything for them.
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One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is to allow them to develop the belief, “I am capable”.
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Children feel capable when they learn they can survive the ups and downs of life.
