by Jane Nelsen
Most mothers find they occasionally have questions about nursing, feeding, bottles, and their babies’ nutritional needs. One of the wisest things mothers can do is to begin right away to build a support and resource network. Many hospitals and maternity centers have lactation specialists; in fact, some even offer websites and twenty-four-hour phone lines to call when you have questions. Churches, childcare centers, and pediatricians may have information on new mothers’ support groups, as well as the many online resources out there, all of which can be invaluable in answering questions and boosting your confidence. Remember, no question is ever “stupid.” Decide what works best for you and your infant, ask for help when you need it, and have confidence in your own wisdom and growing knowledge of your baby.
GETTING THE HELP YOU NEED
All parents have questions and concerns. Fortunately, parent education and training is finally gaining wide acceptance and credibility. Society has never questioned the need for education and training in occupational fields, be it bricklaying or accounting, but somewhere along the line the notion got planted that parenting should come “naturally” and that attending a parenting class or reading a book on parenting was an admission of inadequacy.
These days, parents are reading books, connecting through social media, and attending parenting workshops—and they testify that what they learn helps them enjoy the important job of parenting as their children learn more self-discipline, responsibility, cooperation, and problem-solving skills. Often, simply knowing that others share your concerns will help you feel less isolated. When you make mistakes, you will know how to correct them, and you will be able to teach your children that mistakes provide wonderful opportunities to learn. (We can’t say it often enough!)
PARENTING FROM THE HEART
Parenting groups (and parenting books) are great ways to learn new skills and ideas and to get a little moral support along the way. But when all is said and done, parenting is a matter of the heart and spirit, as well as of training and knowledge. Perhaps the greatest parenting skill of all is the ability to feel an unbreakable bond of love and warmth for your child, and to be able to listen to the voice of love and wisdom even when your patience has been stretched to the breaking point. The next time you tuck your little one in at night, let your gaze rest on that sleeping face; print it firmly in your memory. When you’re confronted with a hysterical infant, a defiant toddler, or an angry preschooler (and there will be many such times as the years roll by), close your eyes for just a moment and look in your memory for the face of your sleeping child. Then let that love and tenderness give you the wisdom to deal with the crisis at hand.
The best parenting translates love from words into thoughtful, effective action. There is a popular children’s book by Robert Munsch titled Love You Forever. In this little gem, a mother watches her infant sleep and croons to him, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” As that child grows from baby to challenging toddler to awkward adolescent, the mother creeps into her son’s room at night to watch him sleep and to croon that same little song.
The day comes at last when the mother lies dying, and the son sits by her bedside to sing the old song to her. When he returns home, he shares the song—and the bond of love—with his newborn baby daughter. That feeling—that indescribable tenderness and warmth that a parent feels for a sleeping child—is the heart of parenting.
There will be ample room in the chapters ahead for information, tips, and techniques, but remember that it is always the relationship between parent and child that matters most. If that relationship is based on unconditional love and trust—if your child knows from his earliest days that you love him no matter what—you’ll probably do just fine.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Make a list of the qualities, skills, and character attributes you consider most important for an adult to have. Invite your partner or others involved with caring for your child to make a list, too. Acknowledge the attributes you feel you have. How can you learn and strengthen the qualities you may lack? How will you teach these attributes to your child?
2. Make a list of things that make you laugh, give you joy, or keep you healthy. Resolve to do at least one thing from that list each day to take care of yourself.
3. If you are parenting with a partner, decide together to devote time each week to your relationship. What will you do with your time? How will you learn to parent together while keeping your own love strong? If you are parenting alone, give thought to how you can build a support network for yourself.
1 If you have specific questions about childcare, find a copy of Positive Discipline for Childcare Providers by Jane Nelsen and Cheryl Erwin (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002).
2 Chapter 21 contains suggestions for establishing a support community.
3 If your partner does not have time to read a book, he or she may enjoy listening to “Positive Discipline: Birth to Five,” a two-hour lecture by Jane Nelsen, available at www.positivediscipline.com.
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POSITIVE DISCIPLINE PRINCIPLES FOR YOUR FAMILY
The Philosophy
In the first weeks and months of a baby’s life, discipline is unlikely to be one of your top priorities. Instead, as you’ve seen, parents are usually focused on welcoming their little one to the family, building a relationship, understanding his cries, and meeting his needs. Before you know it, however, that cuddly infant will become a toddler with a mind of his own. How will you shape and guide his behavior? What does he need from you and his other caregivers to grow into a capable, resourceful, confident young person?
There is a popular cartoon that shows a mother talking to her child. “Honey,” she says, “when you’re older, I want you to be confident, assertive, and independent. But right now I want you to be compliant, quiet, and obedient.” Most parents know the feeling: The very same qualities that we want for our children as adults can make life challenging when they’re young.
Simply put, the word “discipline” means “to teach.” Positive Discipline is the most loving kind of teaching. It involves nurturing trust and connection, sharing skills, and creating an environment where your child can develop feelings of capability and confidence. This sort of discipline begins from your child’s earliest moments and becomes increasingly important as he journeys toward autonomy and initiative. A toddler’s behavior may not always look (or sound) particularly attractive, and can mystify and astonish even the most devoted parent.
Even if you understand and accept that some of this behavior is “developmentally appropriate,” what should you do if it’s not acceptable behavior? It is helpful to know that Positive Discipline will provide you with effective, nonpunitive tools and skills to guide your child’s behavior as he grows.
ADLER AND DREIKURS: PIONEERS IN PARENTING
Positive Discipline is based on the work of Alfred Adler and one of his colleagues, Rudolf Dreikurs. Adler was a Viennese psychiatrist and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud—but Adler and Freud disagreed about almost everything. Adler believed that human behavior is motivated by a desire for belonging (connection) and worth, a desire that is influenced by our early decisions about ourselves, others, and the world around us. He believed that one’s desire to contribute (gemeinschaftsgefühl) is a measure of mental health—a great reason to encourage your budding helper.
Research tells us that children are “hardwired” from birth to seek connection with others, and that children who feel a sense of connection to their families, schools, and communities are less likely to misbehave. All Positive Discipline methods help children achieve that sense of connection, capability, and contribution.
Dreikurs was also a Viennese psychiatrist; he immigrated to the United States before World War II and continued to spread the work of Adler after Adler’s death in 1937. Adler and Dreikurs were passionate advocates of the need for dignity and mutual respect in all relationships, and wrote books about teaching and parenting
that are still widely read, including the classic Children: The Challenge.1 Dreikurs died in 1972. We are honored to continue the work of Adler and Dreikurs through the Positive Discipline series.
WHAT IS DISCIPLINE?
Many have wondered what “discipline” could possibly mean for infants and very young children. Not so long ago (and quite often today), when people talked about “discipline” they really meant “punishment,” usually because they believed the two are one and the same. Real discipline, however, involves teaching. In fact, the word itself comes from the Latin root disciplina, which means “teaching or learning.” Positive Discipline is built on teaching, understanding, encouraging, and communicating—not on punishing. Punishment is intended to make children “pay” for what they have done. Discipline is designed to help children learn from what they have done.
As you will learn, much of what your child does in these early years has more to do with emotional, physical, and cognitive development and age-appropriate behavior than it does with “misbehavior.” Babies and toddlers need nonpunitive discipline (teaching and guidance) that enhances their development and sense of connection—not blame, shame, or pain.
Discipline with young children is mostly about deciding what you will do (and kindly and firmly following through) than with what you expect your child to do. And it’s never too early to lay a foundation for respectful, effective parenting. The principles of Positive Discipline will help you build a relationship of love and respect with your child, and will help you live and solve problems together for many years to come.
WHY SOME PARENTS DON’T ACCEPT NONPUNITIVE METHODS
Most of us absorbed our ideas about discipline from our own parents, our society and culture, and years of tradition and assumptions. Many believe that children must suffer (at least a little) or they won’t learn anything. But many things in our society have changed in the past few decades, including our understanding of how children grow and learn; and the ways we teach children to be capable, responsible, confident people must change as well. Punishment may seem to “work” in the short term. But over time, it creates rebellion, resistance, and children who don’t believe in their own worth and capability. There is a better way, and this book is devoted to helping parents and teachers discover it. Because all children (and all parents) are unique individuals, there are usually several nonpunitive solutions to any problem, but parents often don’t immediately understand or accept these solutions. Indeed, Positive Discipline requires a paradigm shift—a radically different way of thinking about discipline. Parents who are hooked on punishment are often asking the wrong questions. They usually want to know:
• How do I make my child do what I want her to do?
• How do I make my child understand “no”?
• How do I get my child to listen to me?
• How do I make this problem go away?
Most frazzled parents want answers to these questions at one time or another, but they are based on short-term thinking. Parents will be eager for nonpunitive alternatives when they ask the following questions, and see the results this change in approach creates for them and their children:
• How do I help my child learn respect, cooperation, and problem-solving skills?
• How do I help my child feel capable?
• How do I help my child feel a sense of belonging and significance?
• How do I get into my child’s world and understand his developmental process?
• How can I use problems as opportunities for learning—for my child and for me?
These questions address the big picture and are based on long-term thinking. We have discovered that when parents find answers to the long-term questions, the short-term questions take care of themselves. Children do cooperate (most of the time, at least) when they’re involved in finding solutions to problems; they will understand “no” when they are developmentally ready; and they listen when parents listen to them and talk in ways that invite listening. Problems are solved more easily when parents use kind and firm guidance until children are old enough to be involved in the process of creating limits and focusing on solutions.
The building blocks of Positive Discipline include:
• Mutual respect. Parents model firmness by respecting themselves and the needs of the situation, and kindness by respecting the needs and humanity of the child.
• Understanding the belief behind behavior. All human behavior happens for a reason, and children start creating the beliefs that form their personality from the day they are born. You will be far more effective at changing your child’s behavior when you understand the beliefs behind it. When your child is younger than three, you will also need to understand her developmental abilities and needs.
• Understanding child development and age-appropriateness. This is necessary so that parents don’t expect behavior of children that is beyond their ability and comprehension.
• Effective communication. Parents and children (even little ones) can learn to listen well and use respectful words to ask for what they need.
• Discipline that teaches. Effective discipline teaches valuable skills and attitudes, and is neither permissive nor punitive. Millions have found this to be the best method of instilling the social and life skills a child needs to navigate his way through life.
• Focusing on solutions instead of punishment. Blame never solves problems. At first, you will decide how to approach challenges and problems. As your little one grows and develops, you will work together to find respectful, helpful solutions to the challenges you face, from spilled apple juice to bedtime woes.
• Encouragement. Encouragement celebrates effort and improvement, not just success, and builds a long-term sense of self-worth and confidence. Encouragement is such an important Positive Discipline principle that it will be covered in depth in Chapter 11.
• Children do better when they feel better. Where did we get the crazy idea that in order to “make” children behave, we should make them feel shame, humiliation, or even pain? Children are more motivated to cooperate, learn new skills, and offer affection and respect when they feel encouraged, connected, and loved.
DISCIPLINE METHODS TO AVOID
Most parents have done it at one time or another. But if you are screaming, yelling, or lecturing, please stop. If you are spanking or slapping, please stop. If you are trying to gain compliance through threats, warnings, bribes, or lectures, please stop. All of these methods are disrespectful and encourage doubt, shame, and guilt, now and in the future. Ultimately, punishment creates more misbehavior. (There are many studies that demonstrate the long-term negative effects of punishment, but these studies are usually buried in academic journals where parents don’t see them.)
“Wait just one minute,” you may be thinking. “These methods worked for my parents. You’re taking away every tool I have to manage my child’s behavior. What am I supposed to do, let my child do anything she wants?” No. We are not advocating permissiveness. Permissiveness is disrespectful and does not teach children to feel connected, capable, and able to contribute to others. True discipline guides, teaches, and invites healthy behavior. As you may have discovered, you can never really control anyone’s behavior but your own, and attempts to control your child usually create more problems and power struggles. Later in this book, we offer several methods that invite cooperation (when applied with a firm, connected attitude) while encouraging your toddler to develop a healthy sense of autonomy and initiative.
Life with an active, challenging toddler becomes much easier when you accept that positive learning does not take place in a threatening atmosphere. As research in respected university child development labs has consistently demonstrated, children don’t learn healthy attitudes and life skills when they are feeling scared, hurt, or angry. When children feel threatened, they may go into “fight or flight” mode—and because your brain has mirror neurons (“monkey see, monkey do” neurons; more on these in Chapter 3), you m
ay join them there!
Sadly, a child often “misbehaves” because she has lost her sense of belonging or connection. Misbehavior “works” for a very good reason; that is, it regains a parent’s attention and involvement, even if that attention is negative. Believe it or not, children don’t “act out” to get attention. While all children need attention, what they really seek is safe, secure connection. When your child knows that she is securely connected to you, her misbehavior will diminish.
SHE WANTS WHAT SHE WANTS
Q: My sixteen-month-old girl does whatever she wants even though my husband and I have tried various methods of punishment. We’ve tried saying no, putting her in time-out, slapping her hands, and yelling, but nothing seems to work on her. She throws some pretty bad temper tantrums, too. I feel like we have tried everything. I am opposed to spanking and have given in to hand-slapping as a compromise, but it doesn’t work either. My husband thinks we should spank so she knows she has done something wrong and will not repeat it. What do you suggest?
A: You are experiencing the frustration of so many parents who do not understand their child’s development. Punishment—no matter what sort you use—is likely to produce what we call the Four R’s of Punishment:
1. Resentment
2. Rebellion
3. Revenge
4. Retreat, through:
a. Sneakiness (“I just won’t get caught next time”) or
b. Low self-worth (“I really am a bad person”)
Has any young child you know responded in these ways? Brain research suggests that punishment hampers optimal brain development, so it should come as no surprise that the punishments you’ve tried are not working. Take heart: You have not yet “tried everything.” The rest of this book will help you understand why punishment is not effective, and teach you what to do instead.