Posts Tagged ‘nurturing discipline’

• Common Discipline Mistakes Even the Best Parents Make: Part 1

  Date: 2012.03.15 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 17

   

  [This is a revised version of the first article in a two-part series.  Click here to see the second four mistakes.]

  Because we’re always parenting our children, it takes real effort to look at our discipline strategies objectively.  Good intentions can become less-than-effective habits quickly, and that can leave us operating blindly, disciplining in ways we might not if we thought much about it.  Here are some parenting mistakes made by even the best-intentioned, most well-informed parents, along with practical suggestions that might come in handy the next time you find yourself in one of these situations.

   

  Common Discipline Mistake #1:  We lay down the law in an emotional moment, then realize we’ve overreacted.

  Have you reacted in a way that was a bit “supersized” for the behavior you were trying to address?  Maybe your child’s actions didn’t warrant such a dramatic pronoucement:  “You can’t go swimming for the rest of the summer!”  Or maybe the consequences even had to do with something you were counting on:  “Stop calling your brother names or you can’t go to Grandma’s house today.”  Of course, she again calls him “stinky-head” and calls your bluff.  Your options at this point are to either miss your lunch with your friends or show your child that you don’t mean what you say.

  In these moments, give yourself permission to rectify the situation.  Obviously, follow-through is important once you’ve set boundaries; otherwise, you’ll lose credibility in your child’s eyes and your child will not have the security of knowing where the limits are.  But there are ways to be consistent and still get out of the bind you’re in.  For example,  Read the rest of this entry »

• Common Discipline Mistakes Made by Even the Best Parents: Part 2

  Date: 2012.03.15 | Category: Parenting | Response: 8

   

  [This is a revision of the second article in a two-part series.  Click here to see the first four mistakes.]

   

  Here are more discipline mistakes made by even the best-intending, most well-informed parents, along with practical suggestions that might come in handy the next time you find yourself in one of these situations.

  Common Discipline Mistake #5:  We get trapped in power struggles.

  Everyone says to avoid power struggles.  But no one seems to tell us what to do once we’ve gotten ourselves into an inevitable one.  And when our kids feel backed into a corner, they instinctually fight back or totally shut down.  So here are three ways to help you get out of those lose-lose power struggles you sometimes find yourself in.

  A.  Give your child an out or a choice that allows her to comply with your expectations, while still saving face:  “Would you like to get a drink first, and then we’ll pick up the toys?”  The phrase “It’s your choice” can be a powerful tool to wield, since it gives your child some amount of power, which can often diffuse stand-offs.  So maybe you ask, “Would you like to get ready for bed now and read four bedtime stories tonight, or play 10 minutes longer and read two stories?  It’s your choice.”  (If she chooses fewer stories, it’s a good idea to remind her several times before story-time about her choice.)

  B.  Negotiate:  “We’re not really getting anywhere here, are we?  Let’s see if we can figure out a way for both of us to get what we need.”  Obviously, there are some non-negotiable issues, but negotiation isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a Read the rest of this entry »

  

• If I Could Tell You Only One Thing about Discipline

  Date: 2011.08.09 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 15

  Discipline is a complex and complicated subject.  I could write a whole book about it.  In fact, I’ve already started working on one.

  But when we talk about effective discipline and how parents can achieve the results they want when they interact with their kids, it can actually be it pretty simple.  If it were a math formula, it would look like this:

   

  WARMTH  +  AUTHORITY  =  EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE

   

  The research is really clear on this point.  Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life – emotionally, educationally, and relationally – have parents who raise them with a high degree of warmth and nurturing, or what I like to call emotional responsiveness, as well as a high degree of authority, where clear boundaries are communicated and enforced.  Their parents remain firm and consistent in their boundaries, while still interacting with them in a way that communicates love, respect, and compassion.  Warmth and authority are the two sides of the effective-discipline coin.

   

  The first side of the discipline coin:  Warmth

  When we nurture our children and attune to their internal world, we allow them to know and believe that they are seen, heard, loved, and approved of by their parents.  Then they’ll interact with the world around them based on that belief, so that their brains are wired to expect that their needs will be met in intimate relationships.  On the other hand, if a parent repeatedly Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Upstairs and Downstairs Tantrums

  Date: 2011.08.05 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 16

  Summary Bullets:

  • A child’s tantrum may originate in the upstairs brain, meaning the child is in control and is using the moment to intentionally achieve a desired end.  In moments like these, parents should respond with love, but set clear boundaries and avoid rewarding manipulative behavior.
  • If, however, the tantrum originates in the more primal downstairs brain, and the child is truly out of control, then the parents’ response should be less about setting boundaries, and more about nurturing the child and guiding him back into a state of calm and control.

  If you’ve heard me speak before, you may have heard me talk about the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain.  Or maybe you’re read about the concepts here, where I help you teach the basic information to your kids.

  Right now I want to apply that information in a way that can help us deal with one of the most unpleasant parenting issues we all face:  the dreaded tantrum.

   

  The Downstairs Brain and the Upstairs Brain

  The basic idea is that we can think about our brain as a house, with a downstairs and an upstairs.  The downstairs brain includes the brain stem and the limbic region, which are located in the lower parts of the brain, from the top of your neck to about the bridge of your nose.  Scientists talk about these lower areas as being more primitive because they’re responsible for basic functions (like breathing and blinking), for innate reactions and impulses (like fight and flight), and for strong emotions (like anger and fear).

  Your upstairs brain, on the other hand, handles much more sophisticated thinking.  It’s made up of the cerebral cortex and its various parts—particularly the ones directly behind your forehead, including what’s called the middle prefrontal cortex.  In other words, it is literally the higher (and thus upstairs) part of your brain.  This is where more complex mental processing takes place, like thinking, imagining, and planning.  Whereas the downstairs brain is primitive, the upstairs brain is Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Do You Discipline on Auto-Pilot? (revised)

  Date: 2011.05.31 | Category: Parenting | Response: 14

  Auto-pilot may be a great tool when you’re flying a plane.  Just flip the switch, sit back and relax, and let the computer take you where it’s been pre-programmed to go.  Pretty great.

  But I’ve found that auto-pilot is not so great when I’m disciplining my children.  It can fly me straight into whatever dark and stormy cloudbank is looming, meaning my kids and I are all in for a bumpy ride.  So instead, I’m always working on DECIDING how I want to interact with my kids when I discipline them.

  For example, let’s talk about consequences.  For most parents, when we need to discipline our kids, the first question we ask ourselves is, “What consequence should I give?”  That’s our auto-pilot.  But through my years of parenting, I’ve begun to significantly re-think my use of consequences.

  My four-year-old, for instance, hit me the other day.  He was angry because I told him I needed to finish an email before I could play legos with him, and he came up and slapped me on the back.  (I’m always surprised that a person that small can inflict so much pain.)

  My immediate, auto-pilot reaction was to want to grab him, probably harder than I needed to, and Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Ask Tina: Should I Give My Daughter Time-Outs?

  Date: 2011.01.19 | Category: Ask Tina, Parenting | Response: 12

  In this video, Tina responds to a question about time-outs.

  httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zY3Qf2peOc

  

• I like to move it, move it

  Date: 2011.01.09 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 13

  We tend to think that our emotions reside in our brain.  And they do, but they also spring from our bodies.  In fact, when you realize that you’re anxious, your body has already known that for a while—your shoulders are tight, your jaw is clenched, your stomach might be churning.  So, one way we can change our emotional states is by moving our bodies.

  When your child is having a hard time or acting difficult, one quick trick to try is to get them to move their bodies in a different way.  You might grab a big ball and begin a game of catch.  Turning on music and dancing together can quickly shift things for both of you when frustrations are running high.  You can also have them do a few yoga-type stretches by asking them to show you how an alligator snaps its jaws (have them  lie on their belly, arms stretched out far in front of them, with their palms together), or how a bear would climb a tree, or any other type of animal doing some sort of movement.  This can be a surprisingly quick way to move moods in a better direction.

  It works for older kids, too, by the way.  I told my nine-year-old’s Little League coach about this principle, and he ended up having the boys jump up and down in the dugout  when they got discouraged after giving up a few runs during the championship.  Their movement brought a shift of excitement and new energy into their bodies and brains, and they eventually came back and won the game.  (Chalk up another victory for neuroscience!)

  

• Sick of Time-Outs?

  Date: 2010.11.11 | Category: Parenting | Response: 19

  [Update:  I've spelled out some of my main reasons for not being a fan of time-outs here.]

   

  There are far worse discipline tactics than time-outs, but I think that there are some alternatives that can be better in certain situations.  Few children actually use their time-out time to reflect or calm down; in fact, it can even cause them to get more upset, depending on the child.  I prefer some other approaches that require my kids to get more practice using the problem-solving, empathetic, choice-making part of their brains:

  • A “re-do.”  One way I do this is by saying “Stop, please.  Now go out of the room and Read the rest of this entry »
  

• Do You Discipline on Auto-Pilot?

  Date: 2010.10.28 | Category: Parenting | Response: 10

  When your child needs to be disciplined, how do you decide what to do?  Do you decide, or are you just going with what you always do?  Are you disciplining on auto-pilot?  Most of the time, when we need to discipline, the first question we ask ourselves is “What consequence should I give?”  Instead, I’d like to encourage you to begin asking three different questions:

  1.     Why did my child act this way?  If we look deeper at what’s going on behind the behavior, we can often understand that Read the rest of this entry »