Positive Discipline for Preschoolers, Revised 4th Edition: For Their Early Years -- Raising Children Who Are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful

PREFACE (BY THE CHILDREN)

My name is Emma and I am three and a half years old. I talk a lot now. I get frustrated when people won’t read me the same book over and over again, or when they try to leave out a part. My favorite question is ‘Why?’ I like to dress up and try on all kinds of different characters. I like to have stories told to me all the time. I like to have someone to play with me all the time too. And I don’t like to have my playtime interrupted.

I am Jeffrey F. Fraser. The ‘F’ stands for Frank, like my grandpa. I like talking. Yesterday I turned five years old. We can be friends and I will invite you to my birthday party. When I pick what I want to do, I pay attention really good. I have a little brother. He’s okay as a playmate if there’s nobody better. I think this tooth is getting loose. Do you want to hear me count? I can sing a song for you. Do you want to play with me? Okay, you be the bad guy and I’ll be the good guy….

I’m four years old. I’m Cyndi. I have sparkly shoes. Do you know what kind of underwear I have on? They have the days on them. See how sparkly my shoes are when I twirl? I’m too big to be taking naps. If you read me a story, I’ll be happier. I am really not tired. Do you want to see my shoes? I am going to marry Chad. Do you know Chad? He has a Batman cape. Can you read me a story now?

I’m Maria. My hair is long. I never wear dresses ’cuz I’m going to be a fireman. I am four and three-quarters years old. Callie is my bestest friend. Sometimes Callie won’t play with me. She is four and a half. I can play with Gina too. I like to eat lunch with Callie and Gina. I want to sit next to them—not across the table from them. I like it when the teachers teach me things.

This is a book about us—the children. Each one of us is different. Not all three-year-olds or five-year-olds will be like us, but you will probably find a little bit of us in the children you know. This book will help you get to know us and find out what the world is like for us. It will give you lots of ideas about how to help us grow and how to encourage and teach us. We are alike and we are different. We want to be loved; this book is for the people who love us.

INTRODUCTION

We are delighted to have this opportunity to update and revise one of the most popular books in the Positive Discipline series. This new edition includes suggestions for dealing with the ever-expanding role of technology in our lives, new information on building secure attachments and dealing with trauma, and a deeper exploration of teaching preschoolers the social, emotional, and life skills they need. We know you are busy, so we have added a Questions to Ponder section at the end of each chapter to provide easy ways to use the tools presented and to better understand Positive Discipline concepts. And yet, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The centuries-old parenting debate continues: to punish or not to punish. Many parents and teachers who still believe that punishment works have given up the idea of spanking but believe that the best way to motivate children to change their behavior is by subjecting them to punitive time-outs, grounding, the taking away of privileges, and humiliating lectures. They often try to disguise the fact that these are punishments by calling them logical consequences. They are convinced that the only alternative to punishment is permissiveness and a world full of spoiled, entitled children.

Other parents, who are strongly against punishment, have gone to the other extreme. They don’t consciously choose permissiveness, but that is what they end up with when they don’t know what else to do when they give up punishment. In the name of love they are raising children who feel entitled to receive whatever they want the moment they want it. These parents believe they are creating a strong relationship with their children and that they are helping their children feel a sense of belonging and significance. Their goal is an admirable one, but they need more understanding of how to help their children feel significant and capable through contribution—an emphasis we make clear in our discussion of the long-term results of being both kind and firm at the same time.

Many parents are drawn to Positive Discipline because they know punishment is not effective in the long term and they like the idea of being kind and firm at the same time. They just don’t fully understand what it means to be kind and firm at the same time—which is much easier to say than it is to do. In this revision we hope to help parents and teachers understand the importance of being kind and firm at the same time, what it means (how it relates to belonging and significance), and what it looks like.

Being kind and firm at the same time is essential to meet the primary need of all children—to feel a sense of belonging and significance. However, it has become clear that we have not done a good enough job of explaining how children develop a sense of significance. Many parents and teachers think that belonging and significance are the same. They are not. Belonging comes from a sense of connection and unconditional love. Significance comes from a sense of feeling capable, being responsible, and making a contribution.

When parents and teachers are kind but not firm, they actually rob children of opportunities to develop the sense of their own capability and the innate desire to contribute to others. Yes, the desire to contribute is innate, but it has to be nurtured to develop fully. Let us explain.

In Chapter 5, we discuss the research of Michael Tomasello and Felix Warneken. They demonstrated that children as young as eighteen months have an inborn desire to contribute. However, this ability requires frequent practice to develop fully. When children aren’t provided with opportunities to feel capable and to contribute to their family or classroom, this ability may atrophy. At the same time, when they are spoiled, their ability to demand undue service (entitlement) strengthens. Parents who believe their children have plenty of time to learn contribution later in life do not understand how difficult it is to revive atrophied responsibility muscles when entitlement muscles have grown so strong.

Rudolf Dreikurs, a colleague of Alfred Adler, had another way of explaining the importance of being both kind and firm at the same time. He said, One does not win the friendship and regard of a child by humiliating him or giving in to his whims.

So, exactly what does kind and firm look like? One example is to use the word and with children: "I know you don’t want to do your chores right now and I really appreciate your help. What was our agreement about when they would be done? Or I know you don’t want to go to bed and it’s bedtime. Is it your turn to choose a book, or mine? Or even I can understand why you would rather watch TV than pick up your toys and what does it say on the bedtime routine chart we created? And this one, which is one of our favorites: I love you and the answer is no."

Being kind and firm at the same time does not always require using the word and. Sometimes a loving look that conveys Nice try can work wonders on a child’s behavior because it shows kindness and firmness with a little humor thrown in. It can be kind and firm to suggest you both take a positive time-out to calm down before continuing a discussion, or to invite the child to put the problem on the family or class meeting agenda so you can brainstorm for solutions. In fact, every Positive Discipline tool we suggest for parents and teachers requires kindness and firmness at the same time to be effective. It is the second of the five criteria for Positive Discipline.

FIVE CRITERIA FOR POSITIVE DISCIPLINE

Does it help children feel a sense of belonging and significance?

Is it respectful (kind and firm at the same time)?

Is it effective in the long term?

Does it teach valuable social and life skills for good character?

Does it invite children to discover how capable they are, and how to use their power constructively?

Last but not least is the importance of modeling what you hope to teach your children. It is so interesting to hear parents and teachers complain about children who do not control their own behavior when the parent or teacher does not control his or her own behavior. In Chapter 2 we invite you to consider the characteristics and life skills you want your children to develop—a sort of GPS for your parenting journey. We also encourage you to consider what you need to model in order to help your child develop these characteristics and skills. When parents and teachers brainstorm the list of what they need to model, it looks very similar to the characteristics and life skills they hope their children will develop:

Self-regulation (control my own behavior)

Focus on solutions

Problem-solving skills

Respect for self and others

Listening skills

Empathy

Compassion

Mistakes as opportunities to learn

Faith in my child

Honesty

Sense of humor

Flexibility

Resilience

Belief in personal capability

Responsibility

Being the kind of person you want your child to be is not always an easy assignment, but the Positive Discipline skills and concepts in this newly revised edition can help you find your way to becoming a confident parent with the skills for raising a capable, contributing, happy child.

PART ONE

The Foundation

CHAPTER 1

Why Positive Discipline?

Parenting classes, preschool websites, and chat groups often echo with similar questions: Why does my three-year-old bite? or How do I get my five-year-old to stay in bed at night? Child development experts, preschool directors, and therapists’ offices overflow with parents whose offspring have reached the ages of three, four, or five and who are wondering what on earth has happened. Listen for a moment to these parents:

Our little boy was such a delight. We expected trouble when he turned two—after all, everyone had warned us about the ‘terrible twos’—but nothing happened. Until he turned three, that is. Now we don’t know what to do with him. If we say ‘black,’ he says ‘white.’ If we say it’s bedtime, he’s not tired. And trying to brush his teeth turns into a battle. We must be doing something wrong!

Sometimes I wonder if any sound comes out when I open my mouth. My five-year-old doesn’t seem to hear anything I say to her. She won’t listen to me at all. Is she always going to act like this?

We couldn’t wait for our son to begin talking, but now we can’t get him to stop. He has figured out that he can prolong any conversation by saying, ‘Guess what?’ He is our delight and despair, in almost equal measure.

I thought it was cute when my three-year-old could use her little fingers to find all kinds of things on my cellphone. Now that she is five, she wants to play with the phone all the time and has terrible tantrums when I take it away from her. What can we do?

As you will discover in the pages that follow (or as you may already realize), ages three to six are busy, hectic years for young children—and for their parents and caregivers. Researchers tell us that human beings have more physical energy at the age of three than at any other time in their life span—certainly more than their weary parents. An inborn drive for emotional, cognitive, and physical development is urging them to explore the world around them; they’re acquiring and practicing social skills and entering the world outside the protected haven of the family. And preschoolers have ideas—lots of them—about how that world should operate. Their ideas, along with their urges to experiment and explore, often do not mesh with their parents’ and caregivers’ expectations.

What you will discover in the chapters ahead may be a bit different from what you grew up with. It may help to know that Positive Discipline is evidence-based, fits with what we know about children’s growth and development and the latest brain research, and is designed to provide practical, effective tools for understanding and nurturing your child.

Adler and Dreikurs: Pioneers in Parenting

Positive Discipline is based on the work of Alfred Adler and his colleague Rudolf Dreikurs. Adler was a Viennese psychiatrist and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud—but he and Freud disagreed about almost everything. Adler believed that human behavior is motivated by a desire for belonging, significance, connection, and worth, which are influenced by our early decisions about ourselves, others, and the world around us. Recent research validates Adler’s theories and tells us that children are hardwired from birth to seek connection with others, and that children who feel a sense of connection to their families, schools, and communities are less likely to misbehave (other than the age-appropriate power struggles as children seek to discover who they are separate from their parents and caregivers). Adler believed that everyone has equal rights to dignity and respect (including children), ideas that found a warm reception in America, a land he adopted as his own after immigrating here.

Rudolf Dreikurs, a Viennese psychiatrist and student of Adler’s who came to the United States in 1937, was a passionate advocate of the need for dignity and mutual respect in all relationships—including the family. He wrote books about teaching and parenting that are still widely read, including the classic Children: The Challenge.

As you will learn, what many people mislabel as misbehavior in preschoolers has more to do with emotional, physical, and cognitive development and age-appropriate behavior. Through Positive Discipline, parents and caregivers can respond to this misbehavior with loving guidance that helps children develop the characteristics and life skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

What Is Positive Discipline?

Positive Discipline is effective with preschoolers because it is different from conventional discipline. It has nothing to do with punishment (which many people think is synonymous with discipline) and everything to do with teaching—which begins with modeling the skills and values you hope your children will develop. This raises a question: Is Positive Discipline for me or for my children? The answer is both—but you first.

To be effective, you must model what you want to teach. It does not make sense to expect a child to be respectful if you are not respectful. Punishment is not respectful. You cannot expect a child to control his or her behavior when you don’t control your own. Does this mean you have to be perfect? No. A foundational principle of Positive Discipline, as Dreikurs taught over and over, is to have the courage to be imperfect and to see mistakes as opportunities to learn. It’s a gift to your children (and to yourself) when you can say, You made a mistake. Fantastic. Let’s explore what you can learn from this and how you can find solutions to fix the mistake.

As your child matures and becomes more skilled, you will be able to involve him in the process of finding solutions and setting limits. He can practice critical-thinking skills, feel more capable, and learn to use his power and autonomy in useful ways—to say nothing of feeling more motivated to follow solutions and limits he has helped create. The principles of Positive Discipline will help you build a relationship of love and respect with your child and will help you live and solve problems together for many years to come.

The building blocks of Positive Discipline include:

Mutual respect. Parents and caregivers model firmness by respecting themselves and the needs of the situation; they model kindness by respecting the needs and humanity of the child.

Understanding the beliefbehindbehavior. All human behavior has a purpose. You will be far more effective at changing your child’s behavior when you understand why it is happening. (Children start creating the beliefs that form their personality from the day they are born.) Dealing with the belief is as important (if not more so) than dealing with the behavior.

Effective communication. Parents and children (even young ones) can learn to listen well and use respectful words to ask for what they need. Parents will learn that children hear better when they are invited to think and participate instead of being told what to think and do. And parents will learn how to model the listening they expect from their children.

Understanding a child’s world. Children go through different stages of development. By learning about the developmental tasks your child faces and taking into account other variables such as birth order, temperament, and the presence (or absence) of social and emotional skills, your child’s behavior becomes easier to understand. When you understand your child’s world, you can choose better responses to her behavior.

Discipline that teaches rather than punishes. Effective discipline teaches valuable social and life skills, and is neither permissive nor punitive.

Focusing on solutions instead of punishment. Blame never solves problems. At first you, as the parent, will decide how to approach challenges and problems. But as your child grows and develops, you will learn to work together to find respectful, helpful solutions to the challenges you face, from spilled juice to bedtime woes.

Encouragement. Encouragement celebrates effort and improvement, not just success, and helps children develop confidence in their own abilities. Encouragement is also the foundation for creating a sense of belonging—the primary need of all children (and adults).

Childrendobetter when theyfeelbetter. Where did parents get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, parents should make them feel shame, humiliation, or even pain? Children are more motivated to cooperate, learn new skills, and offer affection and respect when they feel encouraged, connected, and loved.

Connection before correction. It is always the relationship that matters most. When your child feels a sense of belonging and significance and your connection to each other is strong, it becomes much easier to understand feelings and behavior, and to find solutions together.

Contribution. If a child only feels connection without a sense of contribution, that child may develop an entitled or Me first! attitude. Your child is more likely to learn the skills and character qualities you desire when you find ways for her to help you and others, and to contribute to her home, classroom, and community.

More About Discipline

Do these parents’ words sound familiar?

I have tried everything when it comes to discipline, but I am getting absolutely nowhere! My three-year-old daughter is very demanding, selfish, and stubborn. What should I do?

What can I do when nothing works? I have tried time-out with my four-year-old, taking away a toy or television, and spanking him—and none of it is helping. He is rude, disrespectful, and completely out of control. What should I try next?

I have a class of 15 four-year-olds. Two of them fight all the time, but I can’t get them to play with anyone else. I put them in time-out, I threaten to take away recess if they play together, and this morning I started yelling when one of them tore up the other’s drawing. I don’t know where to turn—they won’t listen to anything I say. How should I discipline them?

When people talk about discipline, they usually mean punishment, because they believe the two are one and the same. Parents and teachers sometimes yell and lecture, spank and slap hands, take away toys and privileges, and plop children in a punitive time-out to think about what you did. Unfortunately, no matter how effective punishment may seem at the moment, years of research have shown that it does not create the long-term learning or social and life skills adults truly want for their children. Punishment only makes a challenging situation worse, inviting both adults and children to plunge headfirst into power struggles.

Positive Discipline is based on a different premise: that children (and adults) do better when they feel better. Positive Discipline is about teaching (the meaning of the word discipline is to teach), understanding, encouraging, and communicating—not about punishing.

Most of us absorbed our ideas about discipline from our own parents, our society, and years of tradition and assumptions. Parents often believe that children must suffer (at least a little) or they won’t learn anything. But in the past few decades, society and culture have changed rapidly. Our understanding of how children grow and learn has also changed, and how we teach children to be capable, responsible, confident people must change as well.

What Children Really Need

There is a difference between wants and needs, and your child’s needs are simpler than you might think. All genuine needs should be met. But when you give in to all of your child’s wants, you can create huge problems for your child and for yourself.

For example, your preschooler needs food, shelter, and belonging. She needs warmth, trust, and security. She does not need a smartphone or tablet, a television in her bedroom, or the new toy her friend has—but she may certainly want these things. She may love staring at the television screen, but experts tell us that any kind of screen time at this age may hamper optimal brain development. (More about this later.) You get the idea.

From his earliest moments in your family, your young child has four basic needs:

A sense of belonging and significance (connection)

A sense of personal power and autonomy (capability)

Social and life skills (contribution)

Kind and firm discipline that teaches (with dignity and respect)

If you can provide your child with these needs, he will be well on his way to becoming a competent, resourceful, happy human being.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BELONGING AND SIGNIFICANCE

Well, of course, you may be thinking. Everyone knows a child needs to belong. Most parents believe that what a child really needs is quite simple: he needs love. But love alone does not always create a sense of belonging or worth. In fact, love sometimes leads parents to pamper their children, to punish their children, or to make decisions that are not in their child’s long-term best interest.

Everyone—adults and children alike—needs to belong somewhere. For young children, the need to belong is even more crucial. After all, they’re still learning about the world around them and their place in it. They need to know they are loved and wanted even when they have a tantrum, spill their cereal, break Dad’s favorite mug, or make yet another mess in the kitchen.

Children who don’t believe they belong become discouraged, and discouraged children often misbehave. Notice the word believe. You may know your child belongs and is significant. But if he doesn’t believe it (sometimes for the darnedest reasons, such as the birth of another baby) he may try to find his sense of belonging and significance in mistaken ways. In fact, most young children’s misbehavior is a sort of code designed to let you know that they don’t feel a sense of belonging and need your attention, connection, time, and teaching.

When you can create a sense of belonging and significance for every member of your family, your home becomes a place of peace, respect, and safety.

PERSONAL POWER AND AUTONOMY (CAPABILITY)

Your preschooler will never learn to make decisions, acquire new skills, or develop confidence if you don’t make room for him to practice—mistakes and all. Parenting in the preschool years involves a great deal of letting go of the need for perfection.

Words alone are not powerful enough to build a sense of competence and confidence in children. Children feel capable when they experience capability and self-sufficiency by doing, imperfectly, as they learn and develop new skills.

Developing autonomy and initiative are among the earliest developmental tasks your child will face. And while parents may not exactly like it, even the youngest child has personal power—and quickly learns how to use it. If you doubt this, think about the last time you saw a four-year-old jut out his jaw, fold his arms, and say boldly, "No! I don’t want to!"

Part of your job as a parent will be to help your child learn to channel his considerable power in positive directions—to help solve problems, to learn life skills, to develop a sense of responsibility, and to respect and cooperate with others.

SOCIAL AND LIFE SKILLS

Teaching your child skills—how to get along with other children and adults, how to feed and dress herself, how to be responsible—will occupy most of your parenting hours during the preschool years. But the need for social and practical life skills never goes away. In fact, true self-worth does not come from being loved, praised, or showered with goodies—it comes from having skills.

Research has shown clearly that academic success—the ability to thrive and learn in school—depends on the development of self-regulation, emotional awareness, and the ability to get along and work with others. No child is born with these complex skills, but teaching them is part of the Positive Discipline process.

When children are young, they love to imitate parents. Your child will want to hammer nails with you, squirt the bottle of bathroom cleaner, and cook breakfast (with lots of supervision). As he grows more capable, you can use these everyday moments to teach him how to become a competent, capable person. Working together to learn skills can occasionally be messy, but it’s also an enjoyable and valuable part of raising your child.

KIND AND FIRM DISCIPLINE THAT TEACHES

Punishment may appear to work in the short term. After all, children generally stop what they were doing when you yell, threaten, shame, or spank. But what you don’t see is what your child is thinking, feeling, and deciding to do as a result of this experience.

Preschoolers have so much to learn. Respectful, firm teaching not only strengthens the bond between parent and child but is more effective over time in changing behavior. Still, parents may struggle with the idea that punishment doesn’t work the way they think it should.

Why Some Parents Don’t Accept Non-punitive Methods

Because all children (and all parents) are unique individuals, there are usually several non-punitive solutions to any problem. Parents may not immediately understand or accept these solutions; indeed, Positive Discipline requires a paradigm shift—a radically different way of thinking about discipline. Parents often ask the wrong questions. They usually want to know:

How do I make my child mind?

How do I make my child understand no?

How do I get my child to listen to me?

How do I make this problem go away?

Most frazzled parents want answers to these questions, but these questions are based on short-term thinking. Parents will be eager for non-punitive alternatives when they ask the right questions—and see the results this change in approach creates for them and their children. Here’s a good start:

How do I help my child feel capable?

How do I help my child feel belonging and significance?

How do I help my child learn respect, responsibility, and problem-solving skills?

How do I get into my child’s world and understand his developmental process?

How can I use problems as opportunities for learning—for my child and for me?

These questions address the big picture and are based on long-term thinking. When parents find answers to the long-term questions, the short-term questions take care of themselves. Children will mind and cooperate (at least most of the time) when they feel belonging and significance, they will understand no when they are developmentally ready and are involved in finding solutions to problems, and they’ll listen when parents listen to them and talk in ways that invite listening. Problems are solved more easily when children are involved in the process.

We have included Positive Discipline tips in every chapter of this book, along with Questions to Ponder sections to invite you to explore on your own, and we will present suggestions for non-punitive methods that will help your child develop into a capable and loving person.

Discipline Methods to Avoid

Most parents have done it at one time or another. But please:

If you are spanking, stop.

If you are screaming, yelling, or lecturing, stop.

If you are using threats or warnings, stop.

All of these methods are disrespectful and encourage doubt, shame, guilt, and/or rebellion—now and in the future.

Wait just one minute, you may be thinking. These methods worked for my parents. You’re taking away every tool I have to manage my child’s behavior. What am I supposed to do, let my child do anything she wants? Of course not. Permissiveness is disrespectful and does not teach responsibility and important life skills. You can never really control anyone’s behavior but your own, and your attempts to control your child will usually create more problems and more power struggles. Now let’s look at several methods that invite cooperation (when applied with a kind and firm attitude) while encouraging your preschooler to develop character and valuable life skills.

Life with an active, challenging preschooler becomes much easier when you accept that positive learning does not take place in a threatening atmosphere. Children don’t listen when they are feeling scared, hurt, or angry. Punishment derails the learning process.

Methods That Invite Cooperation

If punishment doesn’t work, what does? Here are some suggestions. Remember, your child’s individual development is critical in these years; remember too that nothing works all the time for all children. As your unique child grows and changes, you’ll have to return to the drawing board many times, but these ideas will form the foundation for years of effective parenting.

THREE TIPS FOR BEGINNING POSITIVE DISCIPLINE

Get children involved:

In the creation of routines

Through the use of limited choices

By providing opportunities to help

Teach respect by being respectful.

Use your sense of humor.

GET CHILDREN INVOLVED

Education comes from the Latin root educare, which means to draw forth. This may explain why children so often tune you out when you instead try to stuff in through constant demands and lectures.

Instead of telling children what to do, find ways to involve them in decisions and to ask them what they think and perceive. Curiosity questions (which often begin with what or how) are one way to do this. Ask, What do you think will happen if you push your tricycle over the curb? or What do you need to do to get ready for preschool?

Children who are involved in decision-making experience a healthy sense of personal power and autonomy. For children who are not yet able to talk, say,