Practice Positive Discipline – Page 33

An Episode in Positive Discipline

The other night, my husband and I were talking in the kitchen, and Elia (5) & JJ (3) were in the living room when we heard Elia shriek, scream & start crying. It is instantly followed by “SOR-RY!” from JJ. We look over and Elia is getting up from the floor, holding her neck & crying and JJ has hidden himself between the ottoman and the couch, with his face buried on the floor. Elia said that JJ kicked her.

John comforted Elia, and I picked up JJ and carried him into the front room, intending to “deal with him” (oh, doesn’t that sound nice?). There, he flopped to the floor crying, and I said, “You hurt her!” I had been intending to continue yelling & berating, BUT… realized that I had Flipped My Lid; my prefrontal brain (where the logic & reasoning skills are) was no longer communicating effectively with my middle brain (where emotions are regulated, as is the “fight or flight” reflex). So I walked across the foyer into the office and stood there…the computer was right in front of me so I checked Facebook. This took all of about 20 seconds before I felt calmer and walked back into the room where JJ was still crying (and he could still see me this whole time).

I sat on the couch not knowing if I felt calm enough to say anything yet. But when I did that, he crawled right up next to me and laid his head down on my lap. He stopped crying & sucked his thumb, and I put my arm down on his shoulder. Then I was sure we both were calm, and our conversation went like this (I was trying to “Listen for Understanding”):

Me: Why were you mad?

JJ: I don’t know.

Me: Were you mad?

JJ: No

Me: Were you frustrated?

JJ: No

Me: Were you sad?

JJ: Yes!

Me: You were feeling sad about something?

JJ: Yes because Elia was making scary faces and I didn’t like that and I told her to stop and she didn’t!

Me: Ohhhh…..you were sad that she was ignoring you. You didn’t like the scary faces, and when you told her to stop and she didn’t stop, that hurt you; your feelings were hurt.

JJ: Yes

Me: Oh, OK. You know, Elia got hurt too. When you kicked her, that hurt her neck.

JJ: Mm-hm

Me: Right now she needs help feeling better. What could you do to help her feel better?

JJ: Give her a hug. But I don’t want to do that.

Me: OK. What else could you do?

JJ: I don’t know.

Me: I think you could either tell her that you’re sorry, or you could do something nice for her like color her a picture, or do something else she would like.

JJ: Yeah, I could color her a picture. Will you help me? (Just an aside here, coloring is something JJ rarely does. He never asks for me to get the crayons out, and even when crayons are out and Elia is coloring, he wanders away and does something else. He’s just not too interested.)

So I get out the crayons and paper, and help him get situated at the counter, and he decides to draw a fairy for Elia. He wanted to do it “right” so he kept asking how to do it…he drew a head, body, wings, and then colored it “pretty colors” like pink, yellow & orange. It was so sweet, because he was clearly thinking of her the whole time!

He gave it to Elia, and I was nervous that she would say something about how it didn’t really look like a fairy, but she didn’t. I asked her if that helped her feel better and she said, “Yes, a little bit.” I thanked JJ for helping Elia feel better and he went to sit down & watch basketball with John.

Well, then Elia sat right down at the counter and used the crayons to draw and color a picture of a tank for JJ! I think she realized that she was not so innocent in this whole situation; it was true that had JJ triggered the outburst, but she was the one who had been doing the “poking” all along. She gave him the picture, and he was surprised and said that he felt better too!

I couldn’t have been more proud of my kids, or pleased with the effectiveness of Positive Discipline. Throughout the ordeal, I had used 3 PD techniques: positive time-out (for myself), listening for understanding, and not forcing an apology. The whole encounter started out tense, but ended so sweetly! We all ended up in the living room playing Blokus, and I felt very thankful for my Positive Discipline skills!

Kelly is an API Leader and a Certified Positive Discipline Instructor in Portland, Oregon. She blogs at Parenting From Scratch.

It’s Not Personal

Recently, I was reading a piece in a magazine by a woman whose husband had left her for another woman. She was coping with the betrayal, in part, by repeating the phrase, “There is nothing personal going on here.” It sounds crazy, but realizing that the problem wasn’t her, it was her husband’s own drama, made it easier to accept and easier to deal with fear and anger.

The piece resonated with me, and the words “it’s not personal” kept popping into my head in the following days.

I’ve long held the belief that when people get angry or frustrated, it’s often for the wrong reasons. That person who cut you off in traffic didn’t do it because he picked you out specifically to annoy; he’s just a rotten or a distracted driver. That coworker who slacked on a project didn’t do it to make you look bad and steal your job; she may have been tired or overworked or maybe just is not a team player. Yes, it’s difficult when there aren’t enough checkers at the grocery store and the lines are long and tempers are flaring and the kids are climbing in the cart and squashing the bananas; but management didn’t cut staff with the express intention of making you mad. It’s my opinion that there are very few things worth getting truly angry over.

But somehow, I have had a hard time applying this theory when it comes to parenting. When your children are misbehaving or being defiant or tantruming or just being difficult, it’s really hard to not take it personally. Sometimes it feels oh so personal.

Last week, my husband was out of town for work, and my kids were dragging out bedtime one night. After my 5 year old got out of bed for what seemed like the hundredth time, I got angry and said, “Why are you guys doing this to me?” And then it hit me. They weren’t doing anything to me. Bedtime battles are incredibly normal. Developmentally speaking, 5 and 3 year olds aren’t supposed to want to stop playing and exploring and go to sleep. I have a problem settling down at night too, that’s why I do yoga.

It was not personal. My children had not huddled together in their room and made a pact to stay up half the night and keep me from cleaning and paying bills, and let’s be honest, blogging and updating my Facebook status.

Once I acknowledged that the bedtime struggles were not a personal vendetta against me and my desire for alone time, it was easier to be rational, easier to put the kids back in bed one more time, easier to not blow a gasket when they wanted water, easier to tell them that they needed their rest to be healthy and that I was done answering questions and fetching water and helping in the bathroom.

It worked. My calmer self led to calmer children who stayed in bed and went to sleep.

The next time I’m struggling as a parent, I’m going to remember this. It’s not personal.

Try it. What do you think?

Riders on the Tantrum Storm (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this two part series on tantrums, I talked about the reasons you might want to sometimes “ride out” your child’s tantrums. While it is sometimes therapeutic for kids to simply vent their feelings, more often parents need to work to find the source of the frustration and put a label on the child’s feelings. But dealing with tantrums is not easy, and many of us (myself included!) may sometimes be uncomfortable helping our toddler work through their big emotions.

Allowing Children to Feel Their Emotions

In Naomi Aldort’s book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, Aldort discusses parents’ “need” to stop tantrums. A parent may believe that ending a tantrum is in the child’s best interest, but it is usually based on less altruistic motives: avoiding an unpleasant “scene,” a desire for the child to be happy, the parent’s own discomfort at seeing her child in pain, or the parent’s discomfort in being out of control or in the presence of intense emotions.

But how will our children ever be able to resolve emotional difficulties and become resilient if we do not allow them to experience the full depth of their emotions? Aldort discourages cajoling or distraction by using this analogy:

imagine that you have just learned that your mother is dying or your partner is filing for divorce. In desperation you visit a friend, yearning to talk, cry, or rage in a supportive environment. No sooner do you begin letting out your emotions than your friend offers advice or suggests a distraction: ‘Let’s go to a movie, that will take your mind off of it.’ You are more likely to wish that your friend would listen to you attentively, ignore telephone calls and other intrusions, and focus on you. A child is a person with the same needs.

Aldort lists several strategies parents use to avoid dealing with uncomfortable emotions:
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Sticking Up for Your Child

I am going to take a little Babywise vs AP blogging break and talk a bit about something that touched very close to home this past weekend though the incident(s) were not a one time thing but something that seems to happen fairly often in my new parenting life.

People seem to think that children are property of some sort that are just up for grabs or up to the discipline of anyone that randomly feels like stepping in and “parenting” for a moment. As you can tell I can be a little bitter about this topic. Maybe bitter isn’t the word for it. I am not bitter I just believe very firmly that the only people that should discipline a child is someone who is invested in that child’s life. When you are invested in a child’s life, when you love them, then you will discipline accordingly.

I have been in several frustrating situations regarding this issue. Just this past weekend it was actually a young girl who followed my son around and told him no or re-directed him every time he did anything for a while. I just remained silent and kept removing my son from the situation but it finally became apparent that I needed to do more. I calmly turned to the girl and told her that I appreciated her attempt to help but I that I was his mother and was watching him carefully and would be the one to discipline him if need be. Believe it or not my heart was pounding and I was nervous to say anything!
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Riders on the Tantrum Storm (Part 1)

Our son, Kieran, has been exceptionally tantrumless for the first 29 months of his life. Yes, he has screamed and cried. Once he fell and halfheartedly writhed on the ground. He’s even pulled the limp rag doll trick once or twice – letting his arms go up lifelessly so we almost drop him at the shock of his sudden heft. All 30 lbs of him.

But for the most part, we’ve not had to deal with “typical” toddler tantrums. By typical, I mean the ones harried veteran parents always stop to warn you about when they see you cuddling a sweet, drool-soaked little bundle of baby chub in the supermarket. And you would smile and nod sympathetically, edging closer to the clerk (because the parent’s wild eyes and twitchy left nostril are making you nervous) all the while knowing that your child will never be “typical.”

For 29 months we’ve been blessed with this easy-going little dude. Well, aside from the fact that he is rather attached to my side 23 hours of each day and would prefer something closer to, say, 24. But still, he’s pretty laid back. I attribute this primarily to Kieran’s extensive signing vocabulary. We are convinced that Kieran’s ability to communicate what he was thinking, wanting, and needing through sign language made his pre-verbal days pretty cakewalk.

Now that he has a great verbal vocabulary too, we still haven’t had a “tantrum,” but he is quicker to boil over with a flood of emotions when he is tired or overloaded. My husband and I have shared several bewildered glances, typically to express something along the lines of:

“Where in the world did that come from?”
Continue reading “Riders on the Tantrum Storm (Part 1)”

Shopping at Toddler Pace

Online children toys are currently accessible in a lot of magnificent decisions for all ages

With regards to looking for toys, as an observing guardian, you will absolutely consider a wide range of elements, for example, age fittingness, wellbeing, nature of development and even the brand name. For a parent, for example, you, online children toy shopping has all the appropriate responses! There is a lot of decision, accessibility of brand names and the accommodation of home conveyance.

How to visit an online toy store?

You essentially sign onto the Internet with your PC, whenever of your accommodation and from anyplace and you are in an online toy store! How advantageous is that! You don’t need to stroll down unlimited passageways and be annoyed by apparently supportive salesmen. You can pick what you need to see, think about costs, read client surveys and get the correct sort of item for your valuable one.

Shopping on the web

Their are plenty of the sites available on the internet for shopping, but one always prefer to click on the most popular site https://onlineshopping.help/walmart-online-shopping/.

Toys for kids turns out to be simple since you have a lot of decisions. Things being what they are, how might you want to do your shopping? Basically get the principal item that you see or search for explicit classifications, for example, the accompanying?

• Crafts units

• Early advancement toys

• Fun toys

• Playsets and pretend

• Puzzles

• Building squares and sorters

• Traditional games sets

• Learning and action toys

• Dolls and various extras for the equivalent

• Remote controlled toys and numerous others.

On the off chance that you have a specific item or a toy as a primary concern, you just need to glance through the various classifications that will be accessible on the site of driving retailers and get the item that is the correct one for your kid’s sexual orientation and age.

Building a list of things to get

Making and conceding wishes isn’t constrained to the fantasy world alone! You can likewise do it when you decide to go web-based looking for kids’ toys. This is conceivable when you visit the site of an online retailer who permits you the alternative of adding a specific item to your list of things to get.

Basically manufacture a list of things to get on the web and you will be advised of the accessibility of arrangements and limits on your preferred items. In this way, on the off chance that you are searching for a house model creation unit yet don’t have the spending limit for the equivalent, essentially add it to your list of things to get that you have made on the site. You would then be able to screen this rundown and get your preferred items at a later purpose of time too.

Limits on all the enjoyment stuff

At the point when you go out on the town to shop online for toys for kids, you can likewise have some good times at the same time. One of the manners by which this is conceivable is to search for the arrangements and limits that online retailers offer from time to time. For example, you could get offers on explicit brands, blend of explicit items, etc.

There is positively no denying the way that looking for kids’ items, particularly to decide to do it on the Internet, should be possible rapidly and all the more significantly, advantageously. You can basically sign onto the Internet whenever you pick, from the solace of your home and request the items. Online retailers have different installment choices too. When you have completed your shopping exchanges, you essentially need to trust that the transfer will get conveyed to your residence. All of which basically implies that your purchasing choices are very much educated and taken in light of a legitimate concern for your youngster.

Before You Spank

I once saw a poll in a parenting magazine about spanking that I found interesting. The choices were A–parents who used spanking as a form of discipline and were fine with it B–parents who made a conscious decision to not spank and C–parents who used spanking but wished they didn’t.

What struck me most about the poll was not that there are parents who happily use spanking, but the large amount of voters who fell into the C category, or reluctant spankers. Parents who wanted to do differently, but didn’t have the tools to change their behavior or technique.

My husband and I don’t spank, for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons is continuity. The rule at preschool is ‘hands on your own body’ and we feel that spanking would override that message and provide conflicting messages about that rule. However, if your kids have done something or you’ve reached the end of your rope, it can be really hard to reign in your anger or frustration.
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Children And Puppies

After some of the initial furor over an article published in Time regarding spanking as an indicator of aggressive behavior in children died down, I had some time to reflect not only on the article, but the response to it.

As an AP family, we don’t spank, and the reasons behind that decision are many. However, I don’t want to get into the specifics of if spanking does or does not cause aggressive behavior, nor do I want to touch on the debate of if spanking is or is not abuse. Instead, I’d like to talk about spanking in terms of effectiveness and what parents who don’t want to practice it can do instead. This anxiety in dogs article can teach you ways to help manage your dogs anxiety. Our mission at Little Big Shots is to introduce to the world a revolutionary liquid mineral and antioxidant formulation and delivery system that will transform the pet supplement industry forever. You can check out LBS for your pets healthy life. Our proprietary formulation, Immune-D™, will support a dog’s healthy long life by enhancing the immune system and having a positive impact on the health and well-being of your beloved pet.

When I’m not writing or being a mom, I’m a veterinary technician at a large practice in Baltimore. I’ve been doing this for the better part of 13 years. I’ve been reading this dog blog for a while and I’ve learned a lot about house dogs tips. If pressed, I couldn’t even begin to estimate exactly how many hours I’ve spent with pet owners counseling them on the best way to approach their animal’s behavior. And when I thought about it, I realized there are some parallels between training a puppy consider Black Labrador Retriever puppy for the training find more info about those dogs and raising a well behaved child in this website . It is not easy to raise a dog that is why TreeHousePuppies has got many ideas and things than can help you in the process. Continue reading “Children And Puppies”