A child misbehaves by poking, kicking or similarly assaulting another child. The parent grabs him by the arm and slaps him for hitting that child. “Don’t Hit,” they may even yell. Hmm…what’s wrong with this scenario?

Spanking teaches children that violence is the solution to problems. Hitting teaches that we can and should use physical coersion to get what we want. Not only does spanking teach things that are surely contrary to what we actually want it can errode the trust between parent and child too.

Essentially when we talk about discipline we are talking about behavior that we would like to correct in our children.  What better way to teach our children then to model good behavior and behave in a way that is considered respectful, fair and appropriate.  Hitting or spanking a child is a behavior not considered respectful or even civil so why would we subject children to such “behavior”? Furthermore we should only discipline in ways that make us feel good about our actions. Can you discipline in front of an audience and not feel ashamed? If not, then something is wrong.

There are many advocates for corporal punishment (spanking) that argue that children who misbehave will only respond to a good spanking and that parents who do not spank such kids “spoil” them. We hear the “spare the rod” advice all to often.  As stated above, spanking teaches kids that violence is okay and the “rod” referred to in the Bible is not a physical rod to spank with but instead is a symbol for teaching and guiding.

One of TV’s more popular advice experts, psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw, notes on his website that research has shown that “long-term consequences of spanking can include increased aggressiveness, antisocial behavior, and delinquency.” Does that sound like something we want? Surely not!

No matter what immediate benefits that spanking may bring (stopping the misbehavior)  do we as parents want to accept the potential long term consequences? Is it worth it?

In many cases parents spank because they simply don’t have any better ideas or approaches to stop the misbehavior that does not include spanking. Many parents simply raise their children in the manner in which they were brought up. Often times parents do things without even being aware that they are repeating a behavior they were taught as a child. You can break the cycle!

So how do parents break the “spanking cycle”?  A good way is to become informed about the alternative ways of discipline. These alternatives may be more time consuming and frustrating but on one ever said parenting was easy.

Take the time to talk to your child.  It may take a while for your child to respond to “talking” but with consistency and firmness in your approach it can be a much more satisfying and educational moment for both you and your child.

Whether the child is 3 or 9, taking the time to express and communicate your displeasure with a behavior is a rich learning moment.  It may not feel that way at the time, but by honesty and sincerely expressing your discontent in language that reaches your child, you are showing real concern and engaging your child in a way that teaches him respect and good communication.

The consistent show of respect and patience in listening to your child explain his behavior will teach your child the importance of dignity and compassion during those times when it matters most.

You will be exhausted and it will take likely far greater effort than a spanking, but the benefit will far outweigh the inconvenience of fatigue.  You don’t have to be perfect as a parent; you just have to be willing to take each disciplinary experience as a learning one for you and your child.

More reading:

Positive Discipline

The Discipline Book

ADVENTURES IN GENTLE DISCIPLINE

The No-Cry Discipline Solution

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Self-esteem is important throughout life, but it is in childhood when its foundation is laid.  It’s our job as parents to help our children build self-esteem.  We may do and say things that are bad for our kids’ self-esteem without even realizing it, so it is important to make a conscious effort to help them develop and maintain a positive opinion about themselves.

Listening to Your Child

One thing that parents often overlook is the fact that children need us to listen to what they have to say.  When we don’t, they feel unworthy of our attention.  And that can put a damper on their self-esteem.

Making it a point to listen fully to what your child has to say will let him know that you value his stories and opinions.  Sometimes we just don’t have the time to listen at the very moment they want to talk, but it’s important to let them know that it’s not because we don’t want to.  Set a time to sit down and talk if necessary, and stick with it.

When Your Child Misbehaves

When children are misbehaving, it is easy to forget about keeping their self-esteem intact.  But it is very important to make the distinction between bad behavior and a bad child.

By describing the specific behavior as bad rather than telling your child that he himself is bad, you can let him know that it is not him as a person that you disapprove of.  It is his actions.  Children who feel that their parents disapprove of them are not only more likely to develop low self-esteem, they also tend to misbehave more.

Give the Right Kinds of Compliments

Complementing your child when he does well is important, because it reinforces both self-esteem and good behavior.  But even complements can sometimes do damage.  Backhanded complements do nothing but cause hurt feelings.  Try to refrain from alluding to negative things your child has done when giving complements.  You can accomplish much more by keeping praise completely positive.

It’s also important not to overdo the praise.  While it is great to recognize the good things your child does, it is possible to put too much pressure on him.  Being specific with your praise, such as telling your child you are proud of him for bringing his math grade up from a C to an A, accomplishes more than telling him that he is the smartest kid in the class or the world.

It is important to start building a child’s self-esteem at a young age.  Doing so will encourage him to be the best that he can be and to resist peer pressure.  By listening to our children and keeping their self-esteem in mind at all times, we can raise them to be happy, confident people.

Self-esteem is important for any child’s development. He needs it to grow into a confident adult later in life. When a child lacks in self-esteem growing up, then he has a tougher time handling his everyday troubles.

In severe cases, children have resorted to committing suicide over low self-esteem issues.

In order for them to start building confidence in themselves, you’ll need to sit back and take a look at what you’re doing to encourage them in their lives.

Your child needs your guidance and nurturing all throughout his life. Some of the mistakes that parents make with their children, without even realizing it, are focusing too much on their children’s weaknesses and not enough on their strong points.

No child, or adult for that matter, is perfect – so there’s no need to constantly remind them of that every day. Children need to be taught right from wrong, but you shouldn’t harp on the fact that they never get anything right.

You’re there to help them realize their mistakes, help them to learn from them, and show them how to change paths and turn something from a negative into a positive. Focusing on the mistakes they make will only lower their self-esteem and make them feel like they can’t do anything right.

Some children only hear the negative things and nothing about the positive. Sometimes parents forget to praise their children for the good things they do. It’s those moments in a child’s life that allows them to build confidence within themselves.

Sometimes children need to be given a little more responsibility so that they have ample opportunity to achieve something. Those who aren’t given the chance equate it with not being good enough to do anything.

It dampers their spirit and will eventually control them to the point where they won’t want to try to achieve anything for fear of yet another failure. Give them some kind of responsibility that’s appropriate for their age and skillset.

Children look up to their parents.  In their eyes, you’re superhuman, but that can sometimes result in low confidence in themselves when they start to think that they could never live up to you.

Don’t be afraid to let them know (and see) your imperfections. It’s a lot easier on them when they realize that you make mistakes, too.  For families with more than one child, competition arises for their parent’s attention and affection.

Each child needs to be treated individually according to how you feel they need it, but the accolades they receive should be equal in abundance.  Help your child deal with the turmoil of everyday life as they move from childhood to adult by building their self-esteem a little bit each day.

Technorati Tags: self esteem, children, child, self-esteem, family, development, nurturing

As parents who wish to raise our children consciously and with love and respect, we can’t always do what comes naturally. Our knee jerk responses to our kid’s less than stellar behavior is often a reflection of our own parents choices. While that may be a good thing, it isn’t always so. We may be choosing to parent quite differently than our own parents did. That isn’t an indictment of them any more than choosing to go breastfeed is a rejection of a mother who formula fed us. It simply means that we’ve decided to make different choices that seem right to us given our knowledge, experience and comfort level.

Parenting consciously means taking the time to think before responding. Instead of doing what everyone else does, we choose our responses and pass them through our filter. We endeavor to parent according to higher standards that may include gentleness, minimizing punishment as a discipline tool, and respect for our child’s understanding and development. And yet in the “heat of the moment”, these higher standards can easily elude us! Here are some ways we can take back control of ourselves first, so we can help our children learn self control.

1) Tame the anger beast. Standard psychological wisdom for years has claimed that letting out your anger was cathartic, therapeutic, and that “holding our feelings in” was bad for our emotional and physical health.

 You know what? That so-called wisdom turned out to be bunk! Now, science has shone light on a different truth thanks to numerous studies on the subject: That expressing anger is actually destructive to our health, that anger is harmful to close relationships, and that it becomes an almost addictive trap that we can’t escape from when we indulge in it. I use the word indulge intentionally, because when we scream at our kids or “vent” on our loved ones, we’re actually indulging our baser instincts, not our higher selves. And then we have the nerve to feel justified because they “pushed our buttons”! So it would behoove us to learn anger management strategies before we damage the relationships with those we love the most.

2) Practice, practice, practice. Have you had a day when you settled down into your pillow at night totally happy with how you treated your kids? What made that day different? Did you spend a lot of time outside? Had you had a good nights’ sleep? Did you get some exercise? Did you leave the room and give yourself a time out? Did you give yourself a break to just relax? Did you count to ten or pray for wisdom?  Take note of what you did. Actually write it down, and commit to practicing that tactic again. It’s likely one that works for you. Instead of trying to change yourself into someone else, do what works for you. Practicing that behavior again and again makes it your habit, and it will serve you well the next time you’re in the situation.

Taking charge of our parenting is a bit like taking charge of our money. Whether we set a budget to discipline ourselves or put credit cards in the freezer to make it difficult to overspend, we can also put our parenting in the area of the conscious instead of the unconscious.

Most anyone, whether they come from a Judeo-Christian background or not, has heard of the Golden Rule. Basically, the Golden Rule has empathy at its heart. It states that we should treat others how we want to be treated. It is a simple but positive rule of conduct that can guide us in many areas, but let’s focus on parenting for a moment.

How can a parent use the Golden Rule to deepen their relationship with their kids and be more effective in their discipline?

We can think about how we sound
We probably get in trouble with our mouths more than any other way. As the saying goes, we
write checks with our mouths that our backs can’t cash. How many times do we speak
harshly to our kids and regret that? How often do we say things we regret? And yet how do we
feel about people who talk to us that way? Do we respect and admire them? Probably, we want
to get as far as possible from people who are verbally abusive.

Remembering how we want to be spoken to, especially when we’ve goofed and made a mistake, will
serve us well in our parenting. If we’re going to err, let’s err on the side of soft spoken.
We can think about how we act
Have you ever seen an adult behave hypocritically? Perhaps you had a supervisor at work who
was the biggest gossip or slacker, yet who was quick to point out that behavior in others.
How did that make you feel?

Similarly, when our kids see us saying but not doing, we’ve wasted our breath. Kids are very good
at seeing hypocrisy. All the lecturing and punishing in the world will only backfire if we
are hypocritical with our kids.

We can think about how we treat
Do you remember the trials of childhood? Far from being idyllic, childhood can be frustrating,
difficult and even sad at times. I remember being embarrassed and frustrated when I spilled
my drink at the dinner table, and longing to grow up so I wouldn’t be so clumsy.

Remembering how it felt to be powerless, how it felt to wait on adults for what seemed like forever,
and how it felt to have to rely on adults to keep their promises can help us treat our children with
love and empathy.

One of the key components of attachment parenting is the intent to build a deep bond between parent and child that will create an atmosphere of love and unyielding trust. Most will agree in any situation that creating an atmosphere of trust would not involve hitting or physical coercion. This applies to the parent/child relationship as well, if not more so. A parent that seeks a loving attachment to his or her child should always seek to parent peacefully and consensually and this is the goal of attachment style parenting.

In decades past, spanking as a method of discipline was accepted and encouraged and when anger flares up as it has the tendency to do on occasion, spanking often becomes the quickest and easiest way to handle a situation. However, any benefit that can be had by spanking is a short term solution and the long term lessons we teach by spanking can be hard to counteract at the end of the day. Hitting models hitting, it devalues the parent and the child, it promotes anger, and it just doesn’t work long term. It is important to build upon your repertoire of positive parenting skills and tools.

Redirect

Redirecting is a technique often used by creative parents to direct energy or urges into useful activities. If your younger child is reaching for something inappropriate or something that may cause injury you can remove the inappropriate item and redirect their attention elsewhere. This can be done with an age appropriate toy, a game, a song…something that distracts them from the unwanted behavior or item and channels their urges into a more positive direction. This practice goes hand in hand with the practice of removing temptation in the first place. If you have a lovely glass figurine that you do not want your child to touch, do not leave it in a place that is accessible to them. Attached parents anticipate their children’s actions and are proactive in avoiding conflicts in the first place.

Talk to Your Child

This seems to be one of the most overlooked methods of discipline but yet the very word discipline means instruction or teaching and the most effective way to teach or instruct is to open dialogue between you and your child. Speak with them and decipher the reasons behind their behavior. What needs do they have that are not being met? Are feelings of frustration causing them to act out in less than desirable ways? There is no better way to get to the heart of the issue than to talk with your children and let them know they can trust you to not only listen to them but to see if there is an acceptable resolution for both of you so that everyone’s needs can be met. Even from an early age we should get used to using words (not hands) to diffuse situations and resolve conflict. Instead of punishing them for misbehaving, teach them what they can do differently in the future.

Give Your Child Choices

Children respond well to being included in the decision making process and will be more compliant with your wishes if they have some input. If your child is hitting a sibling you might give them the choice to either remain in the room without hitting or play alone in another room. If your child is conflicted about bed time you could offer to let them decide what their pre-bedtime readiness activity will be, either reading a book or taking a bath. Children will respond better to choices than to draconian commands.

Discipline does not have to mean conflict and angst for the whole family. If we choose to look at discipline for what it really is, an opportunity to teach and instruct, there is no reason why the process cannot be peaceful and positive for all.

Technorati Tags: attachment parenting, discipline, redirecting, choices, conflict, positive, teach, talk to your child

You likely know what attachment parenting looks like for your babies and toddlers, but what happens when your “little” one isn’t so little anymore? How do you apply the principles of attachment parenting to your older child too? Do you struggle with it? Here are some ways to keep the close relationship you enjoyed with your babies strong as your kids grow. Older kids need that bond and secure attachment as well.

Physical Touch
One of the basic principles of attachment parenting is the importance of physical closeness. You kept your baby close in a sling and co-slept with him so that he or she could feel safe in the world. Now that your child is older, that physical touch can and should continue, in a way that feels comfortable for the both of you. That may include back rubs, feet massages, bear hugs and even kisses. Both of you NEED this ineraction.

Of course when your kids hit the “tween” years they may back off from a lot of physical touching, just as a toddler thrills in running away from Mommy when they want some independence. Accept your child’s limits in this area and don’t push, but try to read your child’s cues. Physical closeness with Mom is still comforting, at any age.

Gentle Discipline

You rejected spanking and harsh discipline for your children, and this doesn’t change as they get older. In fact, it may be even easier to implement natural consequences with older kids. As they mature, they have even more respect for your authority and wisdom, no matter how they may deny that to you! In fact, older children may be quite vocal in rejecting your rules, but know that as always, they want and need you to have reasonable boundaries.

In addition, the attachment you nourished with your babies will pay off in spades as they mature. Kids who feel safe not to be treated or spoken to harshly will come forward more freely when they’ve done something they’re not proud of. Be sure not to overreact if you hear something you don’t like. While kids will still make plenty of mistakes and test your limits, if you remain calm and collected, they are often willing to acknowledge “you were right Mom” in the end.

Respect For Their Needs
Just as you responded to your young baby’s cry and your toddler’s on again/off again clinginess, you will continue to show respect for your child’s needs as they change and grow. Listening to your kids and trying to find the underlying cause of their behavior (or mis-behavior!) is very important as they grow and mature.

As your child grows older, their problems will become more serious and will tug at your heart with even more ferocity. You may find yourself wishing that making them feel better was as easy as it was when they were infants. While you can’t make everything unpleasant go away (nor would you want to), you can be the safe harbor in their changing world.

Technorati Tags: attachment parenting, older kids, tweens, teens, physical touch, bond

Attachment parenting is also known as natural parenting or instinctive parenting. Attachment parents do not follow conventional parenting guidelines and ideas. They have chosen to let their own instincts be their guide and not the conventional wisdom parents are bombarded with through mainstream media. 

There are a lot of different philosophies out there about how to raise your children.  One of more popular parenting philosophies that’s been publicized in the past few years is attachment parenting.  Many people don’t understand exactly what it is.  Attachment parenting is when the parents try to form a close, special bond with their children.  This strong relationship with their parents is said to help a child develop strong, healthy, secure relationships in the future. 

While there are many ways to develop these strong bonds with young children, Attachment Parenting International, a major proponent of this philosophy, has released a list of 8 ideals for attachment parents.  It is important to realize that these are something to strive for, not something most people can actually accomplish in their hectic lives.  The ideals they give are:

* Preparation for Childbirth.  This involves educating yourself so you can be an active participant in your pregnancy and delivery.  An active parent should take classes and strive to make important decisions early.  A mother should also try to keep stress on the baby low during pregnancy.

* Emotional Responsiveness.  This is probably the most important philosophy in attachment parenting.  It involves being aware of and fulfilling your child’s emotional needs.  It stresses comforting your baby when they cry instead of letting them “cry it out” on their own.  A parent should develop the ability to interpret and fulfill your child’s needs by spending quality time with them.

* Breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding is not only the most nutritious diet possibly for babies; it also promotes bonding between the mother and child through closeness and also hormonal reactions.  Attachment parenting encourages breastfeeding until the mother and the baby are both ready to stop.  It also advocates breastfeeding behaviors even if you’re bottle feeding your baby. 

* Baby Wearing.  Wearing your baby in a sling can have many positive benefits.  It allows your child to feel safe and secure, stimulates their neurological development, and helps stabilize their biorhythms.  It also brings a sense of closeness between the wearer and the baby. 

* Shared Sleep.  Sleeping in a bed with the parents can make a child feel safe and secure at night because their needs are being met.  If a baby has to cry for a while before a parent arrives, it can shatter their feeling of nighttime security.  With co-sleep, mom is always there to respond to needs immediately.  It also make breastfeeding easier and further strengthens that bond. 

* Avoiding long separations from your baby.  Try not to be away from your baby for too long.  This can emotionally damage a child and the bond you have with them.  If long absences are unavoidable, try to find one consistent caregiver who will treat your child as you normally would, ensuring continuity of care. 

* Positive discipline.  Attachment parenting stressed forming a strong bond with your child which helps them to trust you.  If they have this trust, you can guide them to make good choices by making them yourselves.  You should keep this trust by trying to understand and empathize with your child’s point of view. 

* Balance your family life.  This involves not only being there for your family, but also being there for yourself.  Someone who has a solid support structure and cares for themselves will be better equipped to care for their family as well.

Also, many attached moms are also sensitive to “natural” parenting methods so their particular parenting choices may also commonly involve things such as cloth diapers, “green” cleaning, organic foods, homeopathic treatments, and a no circumcision stance.

While it times it may be difficult to follow all these ideals, if you strive to reach at least some of them, you will likely have a happy, independent, and well adjusted child.

Technorati Tags: attachment parenting, breastfeed, children, positive discipline, natural parenting, babywearing, cosleeping