Stress-Free Discipline promises techniques to help parents that will build the parent-child relationship. Unfortunately, it seems to be more of a behaviourist handbook than anything that will help families parent and discipline gently and meaningfully.
I had a choice in a moment: To focus on the "misbehaviour" or focus instead on making sure my daughter understood one critical thing. I chose that critical thing - knowing that she is always loved by us.
Recent research claims that punishment is effective, but is that what was really being said? Should parents jump on the time-out bandwagon or is a deeper look needed?
Setting boundaries is one of the more difficult things we do as parents. Not only because it's hard to say no to those we love, but also because it's complicated to know what constitutes a healthy boundary and what is unhealthy for our kids.
When people talk about ‘disciplining a child’, they usually mean ‘punishing’ a child. The punishment is supposed to help children learn, but research tells us punishment is an ineffective teacher... So what does it really mean to 'discipline'?
For those who struggle to be gentle and help their young children through emotionally trying times, but don't seem to be seeing the results, I just have this to say: It's not easy, but it is completely worth it.
I’m a big fan of natural consequences. But sometimes natural just doesn’t do it – like when my daughter decides to throw her toys at me – sure, she sees me sad and I will not play with her, but that doesn’t quite seem to curb it, especially when she’s angry and threw it in order to hurt me.
For many of us, we grew up with physical punishment, yelling, shaming, even full-on abuse. We so desperately want to change that cycle, but how? It can be unbelievably difficult to do. One mom asked if I could do a post on ways to change and work towards being the gentle parent we want to be. So here we are.
Oh, really? I call bullshit.
If you're going to call out your child for doing what we do all the time, shouldn't we also call ourselves out?
