The ability to be both kind and firm when dealing with children is especially important when it comes to discipline issues. Kindness is important in order to show respect for a child, while firmness is important in order to show respect for the parent’s role in the situation. Draconian or authoritarian discipline methods will be short on kindness for sure, and ultra-permissive or lax methods of discipline will lack firmness. However, both are essential to any efforts toward positive discipline.
Problems arise when adults have difficulty being kind and firm at the same time and may struggle with the concept at first. No parent feels like being especially kind toward a kid that has crossed the line of bad behavior, but if adults are to control their children’s behavior they must first remember to control their own behavior. If they don’t, they run the risk of being too firm when they are angry or upset, and then later being much too kind in order to counteract being too firm in the beginning.
It can be a big mistake for parents and teachers attempting to employ positive discipline methods to become too permissive in a mistaken effort to please their children and protect them from disappointments. Being permissive is often mistaken for being kind, but it is really only permissive, not kind. Being kind requires respectful actions on the part of all involved. Being respectful means valuing their feelings and having faith that your children can withstand disappointments in life and learn to develop their own sense of capability in the process.
It is not respectful or kind to coddle your children and shield them from the slings and arrows of everyday life. Overprotective parents are not doing their children any favors. In the end, positive discipline often comes down to a parent’s ability to say “no” firmly and gently as each situation warrants. One very effective tool that parents can employ in situations requiring positive, but firm discipline is simply to use the phrase: “I love you, and the answer is no.”