Au Sara - Stress-free discipline: simple strategies for handling common behavior problems

Stress-Free
Discipline

Simple Strategies for Handling
Common Behavior Problems

Sara Au
Peter L. Stavinoha, Ph.D.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Au, Sara.

Stress-free discipline : simple strategies for handling common behavior problems / Sara Au and Peter L. Stavinoha, Ph.D. pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8144-4909-7 (pbk.) ISBN 0-8144-4909-3 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-8144-4910-3 (ebook) ISBN 0-8144-4910-7 (ebook) 1. Discipline of children. 2. Parenting. I. Stavinoha, Peter L. II. Title.

HQ770.4.A92 2015

649.64dc23 014028025

2015 Sara Au and Peter L. Stavinoha.

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Printed in the United States of America.

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Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PART I
Understand Discipline from the Inside Out

PART II
Dealing with Areas of Common Difficulty

PART III
Develop Positive Characteristics

PART IV
Recognize Red Flags

Tantrums! Homework! Mealtime! Bedtime! And then theres the attitude starting.... If youre parenting a child, youre under a lot of stress, and that stress is most pronounced when youre dealing with a behavioral problem. Kids are also under a lot more stress today, so its no wonder that clashes are frequent and that common ground seems rare. But it doesnt have to be that way. You can use discipline to cultivate a positive relationship with your child and alleviate many behavioral issues.

Start by taking a moment to think about what the term discipline means to you. If youre like many people, you may interpret it as synonymous with punishment. Within the pages of Stress-Free Discipline, well broaden that interpretation.

Discipline is counseling, consoling, coaching, ignoring, practicing, praising, and sometimes punishing, according to the values of your family. Discipline is an investment in your childs future, not just the correction of the behavior in front of you at any given moment. Discipline is shaping your childs behavior toward the outcome you want. More than anything, discipline is education.

Its essential for you to understand that discipline is not simply punishmentthat punishment is simply one method of discipline. This book offers a whole new repertoire of strategies on a par with punishment to put in your parenting arsenal, including positive reinforcement, role-modeling, and restitution. We will teach you to learn from each experience handling a behavioral situation with your child and to self-correct your approach. Additionally, you need to examine your own life choices, such as how busy you are, your time and resources, as well as your own relationships and self-care, to see how they fit in with your childs behavior.

Children need to feel loved by the person or persons parenting them and to know their value in the world. But love is not the same thing as permissiveness. Parental love means saying no to your child at times when its in her best interest. Love is inextricably intertwined with discipline. Taken together, love and discipline form the most solid foundation for life that can be provided to a child.

Love is inextricably intertwined with discipline.

Picture yourself as a gardener just starting to organize and cultivate an overgrown backyard. You first must make a plan for what youre going to plant and where youre going to plant it. You then have to start weeding, being careful to identify what is growing before you decide to pull it out or keep it. After that, you need to till the soil, turn it over with fertilizer, and, finally, plant the seeds. But planting is just the beginning. Youve also got to water the garden and nurture its growth. And, of course, you have to keep feeding, watering, and monitoring your plants on a regular schedule.

Well be doing all that with you as you learn how to tend the garden that is your family. Just as different plants need different kinds of care, soil, and sunlight, each of your children will need his or her own version of your discipline approach.

An understanding of your childs motivations will help you weed out some bad behaviors from his garden and till the soil for the new seeds. Being an attentive parent is like a regular watering schedule: It nourishes your child. Before long, seedlings will mature into young plants, stretching green leaves up into the sky to capture as much sunlight as possible and drilling roots to anchor themselves tightly to that which fortifies them. Love and discipline root your child deeply, so he grows straight and strong, and doesnt bow to negative influences later in life. Good disciplinary methods will help your child blossom and grow into a strong, healthy, thriving, beautiful individual.

Getting your child from where she is today to where you want her to be as an adult is what parenting is all about, so before we get into tips, tactics, and psychological insight, lets start with an affirmation for you:

Now, we authors are parents, too, and we know its not that easy to hold onto a positive thought like this when youre in the thick of a difficult situation. Without a crystal ball, its really hard to know if what youre doing is right, especially when every day seems to bring another problem. Thats really the crux of why we wanted to write