Positive Child Discipline
How To Use Positive Child Discipline
I am a single mother of a 17 year old boy. He has turned out so
great. Honor Student. Just a loving person. I attribute this to
the way I brought up my son. I can't say I never yelled at
him--that would not be true but I did not hit my son or only hit
him a few times. Hitting is just a way of getting out your anger
quickly.
Verbal abuse is just as bad. So what can a mother do to raise
her children in a loving way?
I also ran a daycare center for children many years ago and have
been around a lot of children throughout my life. My sister has
a 14 year old daughter and she going through h*ll right now. I
can see everything she could be doing differently. And it is
very simple...
Do you remember when your child was under 5 years old and as
soon as you walked in the room, their eyes just lit up! They ran
to you like you were the most important thing in their life!
What happened? I know as they get older, things change but they
could still be glad to see you.
Whether your child is very young or a teenager what is the most
frequent word you use? The answer is...NO! NO! NO! NO! That is
the first mistake we are making.
When your child is 2 years old and they are going through their
terrible 2s, they are only trying to become for the first time
independent from you. They are exploring their world. And yet
everytime they what to experiment, we say NO! NO! NO!
The first thing we must do is change that NO! to something
positive. What I am hearing now from the discipline community is
let your 2 year child do what they want to do as long as it does
not hurt you, hurt themselves or hurt anyone else.
So what if they go to the garbage. Don't leave the garbage out.
If you forget and you see they are going into the garbage don't
say NO! Get your butt up and move the garbage can out of their
way. That's it. You now have said one less NO!
Anytime your 2 year old goes into something that may be harmful
or filled with germs, get your butt up and move it out of their
way.
We say 1,000's of times NO! in their lifetime and you wonder why
we have negative children. Start now when they are young to stop
saying NO! The only time I think it is appropriate is if, for
example, a child runs out in the street, then I think NO! is
appropriate. But after a while the word NO! is second nature to
children because they have heard it so many times.
When I see mothers hit their children, I see them hit out of
anger. Think before you hit a child. Did this child really
deserve to get hit?
I am also an RN and I have seen families hitting children
because they are aggravated or stressed out.
It is hard bringing up children but one thing you can try and
change is stop saying NO! especially for the young child.
When my son was growing up I read every discipline book, took
classes, listened to tapes because I didn't know how to raise a
child. I needed help and we all do.