How To Use Positive Child Discipline

I am a single mother of a 17 year old boy. He has turned out so great. Honor Student. Just a loving person. I attribute this to the way I brought up my son. I can't say I never yelled at him--that would not be true but I did not hit my son. Hitting is just a way of getting out your anger quickly. Verbal abuse is just as bad. So what can a mother do to raise her children in a loving way.

I have also ran a daycare center for children many years ago and have been around a lot of children throughout my life. My sister has a 14 year old daughter and she going through h*ll right now. I can see everything she is doing wrong. And it is very simple...

Do you remember when your child was under 5 years old and as soon as you walked in the room, their eyes just lit up! They ran to you like you were the most important thing in their life! What happened? I know as they get older, things change but they could still be glad to see you.

Whether your child is very young or a teenager what is the most frequent word you use? The answer is...NO! NO! NO! NO! That is the first mistake we are making.

When your child is 2 years old and they are going through their terrible 2s, they are only trying to become for the first time independent from you. They are exploring their world. And yet everytime they what to experiment, we say NO! NO! NO!

The first thing we must do is change that NO! to something positive. What I am hearing now from the discipline community is let your 2 year child do what they want to do as long as it does not hurt you, hurt themselves or hurt anyone else. So what if they go to the garbage. Don't leave the garbage out. If you forget and you see they are going into the garbage don't say NO!

Get your butt up and move the garbage can out of their way. That's it. You now have said one less NO! Anytime your 2 year old goes into something that may be harmful or filled with germs, get your butt up and move it out of their way.

We say 1,000's of times NO! in their lifetime and you wonder why we have negative children. Start now when they are young to stop saying NO! The only time I think it is appropriate is if, for example, a child runs out in the street, then I think NO! is appropriate. But after a while the word NO! is second nature to children because they have heard it so many times.

When I see mothers hit their children, I see them hit out of anger. Think before you hit a child. Did this child really deserve to get hit?

I am also an RN and I have seen families hitting children because they are aggravated or stressed out. It is hard bringing up children but one thing you can try and change is stop saying NO! especially for the young child.

When my son was growing up I read every discipline book, took classes, listened to tapes because I didn't know how to raise a child. I needed help and we all do.

Copyright 2005 Fern Kuhn, RN - Specializing in Diabetes

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