Know how you can easily use positive discipline for kids.

I was slightly rebellious as a kid. It was my mum who had the tact of using positivity and discipline together. As an adult too, if you command me to do something ( well, except if you are my boss) I may not do it wholeheartedly. However, if you request me to do it, I may even turn mountains for you. Gone are those days when kids were expected to be disciplined at the simple show of eyes, yelling and spanking. I personally feel they need empathy and positive affirmations instead.

I try my best to be cautious about how I react to my little one and seldom swallow my own words too. Although my kid is fairly disciplined, he is often full of sass and drama as well.

I have truly believed, that even though yelling makes a person feel better, it doesn’t really discipline your child. There are indeed alternatives to yelling. So when you have a child throwing a tantrum or misbehaves or is having a meltdown, it definitely will have an underlying reason for you to decipher.

Not all kids are alike and hence they all will have different emotions. Without a doubt, we all like being treated with love, respect and lots of care. Disciplining kids is absolutely needed and when you do it with dash of positivity, it surely works wonders. Using the positive discipline method, helps you target the behavior and not the person. We all have after all, agreed, that there are no bad people or bad kids, it’s either the situation, time or behavior that needs changing.

Here are few ways that you can easily use to imbibe positive discipline in kids.

We have all experienced the yelling, blaming and the drama as kids.There will always be an argument, that we turned out just fine. However, since none of that felt awesome at that point, is what calls for moderation in how we want to discipline our kids.If you want to practice positive discipline then you indeed need to be ready to unlearn a few things too.

Set boundaries – It always helps to set limits of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in any relationship.As parents, seldom the easy way out is to react negatively to the crossing of boundaries. To do this positively, you can use empathy and reminders for your kids. For example, if you have a child who hits when angry, you need to remind them that hitting causes harm. If they continue to do that, you need to ask them to stop and show that it causes you pain.

Instead try using statements like, “I understand you are upset and are not happy, however hitting will make you more upset. Is there anything we can try to better your mood”

Don’t just talk, but “walk the talk”

Often we are caught telling our kids about what the repercussions of their actions will be. If you intend to use positive discipline for them,you need to practice what you preach. If your child often breaks things even after being asked not to. You can gently keep the thing out of reach from your kids and tell them, ” I understand you want it and I would love to hand it over to you however it needs to be handled with care. Once you are ready to handle it gently, I will surely hand it to you. Use positive affirmations.

Alternatives

We all like to have our options. Offer choices to your kids in order to avoid power struggles with your little ones.For example, if you have a vegetable being served, ask your child, would they eat that vegetable with rice, bread or rotis. You can always tweak their schedules by some minutes too in order to avoid meltdowns.

Are you a yes parent?

Positive discipline may seem like the hardest things to practice. We often find ourselves saying no and reacting instantly. It will help to practice changing the words in your speech.For example, instead of saying don’t go out now, you would rather say, ” let’s be indoors and do something fun”.

Ask them for solutions

Now this can be a tricky one. You can always use a firm voice when situation goes out of control. It really works for me when, I ask my son to give me solutions to challenges. I do ask him what my course of action should be, in case he doesn’t listen or how we can mutually agree to a solution.

Well, I have been in a place where I thought all of this sounded too fancy to read and difficult to practice. Just the way every action or habit requires consistency, this too requires perseverance and determination. You will not be able to achieve this overnight. You will also have moments when it all falls apart. The best thing to do would be to, start afresh.

The way a doctor treats the symptoms in order to make a person feel better. Similarly, you too would have to treat the situation rather than the person.

The most important aspect of parenting is to treat your children’s emotions with respect and have two way communication always. I recently read this great book on parenting that should be read by all of us.

The slow and steady wins the race ideology definitely helps here.Also I truly believe each parenting journey is different and we must do what is best for our kids in the best way possible.

Happy Parenting and Learning.