Positive Discipline

Is more about building healthy kids than what we traditionally think of when we hear the word "discipline." It is powerful for parents, educators and community members. With a trauma informed approach, Positive Discipline can help respond to dysregulated kids and guide them to a place of connectedness where they feel a sense of value.

For Parents

Recent brain research tells us that children are “hardwired” from birth to connect with others, and that children who feel a sense of connection to their community, family, and school are less likely to misbehave. To be successful, healthy and contributing members of their community, children must learn necessary social and life skills. Positive Discipline gives parents guidance in teaching these skills.

For Schools

Hundreds of schools use these amazingly effective strategies for restoring order and civility to today's turbulent classrooms. Now you too can use Positive Discipline as a foundation for fostering cooperation, problem-solving skills, and mutual respect in students.

Positive Discipline weaves the teaching of social-emotional skills and character development into the fabric of each and every school day. Adults model the skills they are teaching and integrate them into the discipline system used by the school. The result is a campus-wide approach for effective discipline and a school, which systematically and intentionally cultivates positive school culture and climate.

Five Criteria for
Effective Discipline

Helps children feel a sense of connection. (Belonging and significance) 
Is mutually respectful and encouraging. (Kind and firm at the same time.)
Is effective long - term. (Considers what the child is thinking, feeling, learning, and deciding about himself and his world – and what to do in the future to survive or to thrive.)
Teaches important social and life skills. (Respect, concern for others, problem solving, and cooperation as well as the skills to contribute to the home, school or larger community.)
Invites children to discover how capable they are. (Encourages the constructive use of personal power and autonomy.)

Positive Discipline
Tools

The Positive Discipline Parenting and Classroom Management models are aimed at developing mutually respectful relationships. Positive Discipline teaches adults to employ kindness and firmness at the same time, and is neither punitive nor permissive. The tools and concepts of Positive Discipline:

Mutual respect. Adults model firmness by respecting themselves and the needs of the situation, and kindness by respecting the needs of the child.
Identifying the belief behind the behavior. Effective discipline recognizes the reasons kids do what they do and works to change those beliefs, rather than merely attempting to change behavior.
Effective communication and problem solving skills.
Discipline that teaches (and is neither permissive nor punitive).
Focusing on solutions instead of punishment.
Encouragement (instead of praise). Encouragement notices effort and improvement, not just success, and builds long-term self-esteem and empowerment.

Theory

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) was a psycologist and contemporary of Sigmeund Freud who saw human behavior as a movement toward or striving for a sense of belonging (connection) and significance and from a sense of "less than" to a sense of wholeness. He argued that most misbehaviors were really solutions to a different problem (usually a sense of being less than) and that understanding the problem would offer insight into helping the person find more effective and socially useful solutions. He understood that growing and learning as a human being requires the courage to be imperfect.

For more information on Positive Discipline, visit www.positivediscipline.org.

To schedule a workshop or register for a class, visit the schedule page on this site.