Positive Discipline for Kids

​Many psychologists have long recognized that overly strict discipline can create more problems with your children than it solves. Kids who are constantly criticized, corrected, punished and restricted will often act out in many anti-social and sometimes destructive and illegal ways later on in their teen or young adult years. Instead, developing a good relationship with your children and using positive discipline will allow children to learn to respect themselves and others while developing their own sense of self-discipline.

Positive discipline depends on creating a good relationship with a child so that they respond to sensible guidance instead of threats and punishment. One of the most effective discipline strategies for good discipline is to try to get your child to want to please his parents and mentors instead of arguing with them. Punishment can be destructive to relationships and ultimately may just encourage misbehavior. Strong, loving guidance allows a child to focus on improving their behavior instead of being angry with the world.

Setting limits is a critical part of guiding your child with sensible discipline and setting limits with empathy will make them more effective. This is especially true in any situation that poses a physical danger to a child. A parent may have no choice but to intervene immediately to set limits, but at the same time they can also connect with the child by empathizing. However, for any limits or rules to work, the parent must have a relationship with the child that is strong enough to support the teaching experience. When a child does not accept parental direction, it can be an indication of a weak underlying relationship.

A parent may turn to punishment as a first response, but the statistics show that it can undermines a relationship with a child and sets up a power struggle. Studies have shown that punishment often makes a child feel bad and damages their self esteem. The result is often more of the same bad behavior. Some parents may be inclined to employ “timeout” periods instead of physical punishment, but to the child they are simply just another version of punishment enforced by banishment and humiliation. Timeout periods are not really effective and they can erode a relationship with a child instead of strengthening it.

Children will often learn to treat themselves the way they are treated by their parents. If you're overly harsh with a child, they will grow up to be harsh adults. It may seem a paradox, but harsh discipline and punishment can interfere and retard a child's ability to develop their own self-discipline. Instead, loving guidance and positive discipline will result give a child a much better shot at developing their own sense of reasonable self-discipline.