The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline: Professional Advice for Raising a Well-Behaved Child

by Carl E. Pickhardt

Overview

The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline gives you all you need to help you cope with behavior issues, both large and small. Written by noted psychologist Dr. Carl E. Pickhardt, this authoritative, practical book provides you with professional advice on dealing with everything from getting your kids to do their homework to teaching them to respect their elders. 

The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline shows you how to: 

- Set priorities; 

- Promote communication; 

- Establish the connection between choice and consequence; 

- Enforce punishment; 

- Change discipline style to reflect the age of the child; 

- Work with your partner as a team. 

The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline is guaranteed to help you keep the peace, and raise a well-behaved child in any home!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605505169
Publisher:	Adams Media
Publication date:	12/01/2003
Series:	Everything® Parenting Guide Series
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	539 KB

About the Author

An Adams Media author.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 2

Why Discipline Is Hard to Give

It's difficult to offer instruction on how to dole out discipline because it requires patience to give, attention to receive, and practice to accomplish. You may sometimes find it easier to do something for a child rather than teach her to do it for herself. Careful instruction is an investment in your child's future. If you take the time to teach your child to tie her shoes now, you'll not only give her a skill and a sense of competence, but improve her self-sufficiency in the long run.

Making the Most of Discipline

Disciplining a child is a tough parenting skill to learn because neither you nor the child welcomes this negative focus in the relationship. As a parent, however, you know that every wrong your child commits is an opportunity to teach your child what is right. Thus, although you wish your child didn't draw on the bathroom mirror with your lipstick, you took this opportunity to teach her about the privacy of your belongings, where it was inappropriate to color, and how people must clean up when they make a mess.

Problems Can Alter a Parent's Outlook

Parents need to be on guard when a discipline problem arises-on guard against their own actions. When a child does wrong, a parent can also go wrong in response. Discipline problems can affect the way a parent behaves in a way that makes the situation worse, not better. A discipline problem can cause parents to:

*Develop a negative perception of the child: "He was born to make trouble." (No child is born to make trouble.)
*Make generalizations about the child instead of sticking to specifics: "She has no respect for what I say!" (The child was simply arguing about being disallowed a snack before supper.)
*Narrow their perception of the child: "All he ever does is wrong!" (The parent ignores all the child does right.)
*Take personally what is not personally meant: "Why is she tormenting me this way when I'm so tired?" (The child is too preoccupied with herself to consider the effect of her arguing on others.)
*Feel helpless and hopeless: "We've tried everything and nothing works!" (No parents have ever tried every management alternative; they have only grown tired and run out of the will to try anything else.)

If you become so fixated on the problem that your view of the child is negatively altered, get support. Ask a friend to help you list ten things that are going right in your child's life, and ten qualities in your child that you value. This exercise can help restore perspective.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xiii
Chapter 1	The Basics of Discipline	1
	Positive versus Negative Discipline	1
	How Discipline Affects Your Relationship	2
	Instructional versus Correctional Responses	5
	Understanding Instruction	6
	Giving Correction	10
	Principles of Correction	13
Chapter 2	The Difficulty of Disciplining	17
	Your Attitude Matters	17
	Guidance for the Future	18
	Risking Resentment	20
	Pressure to Be Perfect	22
	Keeping Priorities in Order	23
Chapter 3	The Limits of Parental Control	25
	Parental Influence in Perspective	25
	Cooperation Required	28
	To Change Your Child, Change Yourself	28
	Getting out of Negative Cycles	29
	Building Blocks of Cooperation	30
	Attention Disorders	31
	Discipline Through Medication	33
Chapter 4	The Principle of Consent	37
	Working for Consent	37
	Acknowledging Consent	38
	Seeing the Big Picture	38
	Compromising to Get Consent	39
	Handling Frustration	41
	The Power of Choice	45
Chapter 5	Communicating with Courtesy	49
	Why Courtesy Matters	49
	The Power of Discourtesy	50
	The Discipline of Apologizing	51
	The Discipline of Forgiveness	53
	Communicating the Wrong Message	56
	Adjusting for Growth Cycles	57
Chapter 6	Dealing with Differences	61
	Multiple Children, Multiple Personalities	61
	Not a Chip off the Old Block	63
	Two Parents, Two Views	63
	Giving Acceptance versus Making Demands	66
	Different Genders	66
	The Danger of "Good" and "Bad"	68
Chapter 7	Parental Authority	71
	Why It's Important	71
	The Dangers of Not Having Authority	72
	Establishing Parental Authority	74
	Authority That's Positive	75
	Authority Styles	75
	Ways You Communicate Authority	77
Chapter 8	Family Rules	81
	Stemming from Worry	81
	The Importance of Rules	83
	A Form of Security	85
	Two Kinds of Rules	86
	Being Consistent	86
	Being Inconsistent	87
	The Power of Prohibition	87
	Outside Influences	89
Chapter 9	Raising Responsible Children	95
	Two Elements	95
	Teaching Responsible Behavior	97
	Teaching Responsibility	100
	Teaching Two-Step Thinking	103
	Readiness for Responsibility	105
	The Choice/Consequence Connection	106
	Casting off Responsibility	109
	Counting Systems	110
	Earning Systems	111
Chapter 10	Guidance: The First Factor	113
	Good Parents Never Shut Up	113
	The Power of Persuasion	115
	Partnering with Your Child	118
	Giving Feedback about Performance	119
	Sharing about Yourself	121
	The Power of a Good Talking-To	124
Chapter 11	Supervision: The Second Factor	127
	Good Parents Never Give Up	127
	The Power of Pursuit	128
	The Power of Surveillance	130
	Home Alone	133
	The Messy Room	135
	Resisting Schoolwork	137
Chapter 12	Punishment: The Third Factor	143
	Good Parents Never Back Off	143
	The Power of Enforcement	146
	The Limits of Punishment	151
	External and Natural Consequences	153
	Isolation as Punishment	154
	Deprivation as Punishment	155
	Reparation as Punishment	158
	The Negative Attention Trap	158
Chapter 13	Exchange Points: The Fourth Factor	161
	Good Parents Get as Well as Give	162
	The Power of Mutuality	163
	Someone You Can Enjoy Living With	164
	Predictable Behaviors in Parents	165
	Taking Back the Initiative	165
	Being Part of the Family	167
Chapter 14	The Only Child	169
	Special Concerns	169
	Parental Peer Pressure	171
	Emotional Enmeshment	172
	The Tyranny of Pleasing	174
	The Expectation for Return	176
	Unrealistic Standards of Performance	177
	Falling Away in Adolescence	178
Chapter 15	Discipline Changes with Age	183
	Early Childhood (Up to Age 3)	183
	Late Childhood (Ages 4-8)	185
	Transition into Adolescence (Ages 9-10)	186
	Early and Midadolescence (Ages 9-15)	187
	Late Adolescence (Ages 15-18)	189
	Trial Independence (Ages 18-23)	191
	Once a Parent, Always a Parent	192
Chapter 16	Disciplining the Teenager	193
	The Hard "Half" of Parenting	193
	Parenting the Teenager	194
	The Problem of Hurry-Up Growth	195
	Readjusting Expectations	196
	The Four Stages of Adolescence	199
	Substance Abuse	201
	The Freedom Contract	207
Chapter 17	Early Adolescence (Ages 9-13)	211
	Signs of Early Adolescence	211
	Insecurity and Low Self-Esteem	213
	Separation from Childhood	216
	The Negative Attitude	219
	Rebellion	221
	Early Experimentation	224
Chapter 18	Midadolescence (Ages 13-15)	227
	Your Adolescent's Worldview	227
	Strains on the Relationship	230
	The Shell of Self-Centeredness	231
	Avoiding Responsibility	232
	The Battle Against Authority	233
	Communicating with Your Teen	235
	The Power of Peers	236
	Adolescent Lies	238
Chapter 19	Late Adolescence (Ages 15-18)	243
	The Learning Curve of High School	244
	Driving a Car	246
	Holding a Part-Time Job	248
	The Teen Social Scene	249
	The Culture of Sex	251
	Sexual Gaming	253
	Romantic Relationships	255
	Sex as a Rite of Passage	256
	What to Say about Having Sex	256
	Preparing for Independence	258
	Trial Independence (Ages 18-23)	260
Chapter 20	Constructive Conflict	263
	Why Conflict Is Necessary	264
	The Nature of Conflict	265
	The Dance of Conflict	266
	Communication in Conflict	268
	Tactics to Avoid	269
	Rules for Family Conflict	273
Appendix A	Helpful Web Sites	277
Appendix B	Additional Resources	279
	Index	281