Effective Discipline is Positive Discipline
Effective discipline begins with the parent knowing how to be “In Charge.” My observations over the past few decades have been that not only do many contemporary parents of young children not seem to know how to be In Charge of their children, but more and more parents seem to not know that they even should be In Charge of their kids. I would love to see this trend start to reverse. I think parents and kids are suffering because of it.
This concept of being In Charge is two-sided. The first aspect of a parent being In Charge of a child is for it to be done respectfully. The parent needs to be In Charge of the child in a firm, loving, fair, and non-harsh way. If a parent is disrespectfully In Charge of a child, the child may react with stubborn, manipulative, or retaliatory expressions of anger. In other words, a parent who is In Charge of a child in a disrespectful way can easily provoke temper tantrums in the child.
The second part of a parent being In Charge is about being In Charge enough (adequately)—and enough of the time (consistently). It’s about the parent not allowing the child to be In Charge.
In my book, MegaMom’s Wisdom for Tantrums, I offer much discipline-how-to information based on more than forty years of assessment of various discipline techniques and learning how not to and how to discipline children. I have evolved some of my own positive discipline techniques that I didn’t get from anyone else, all of which I share in my book.