02（英）Don't cry, okay?

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本课程是中英双语授课，您可以点击“专辑--节目”选择中文或英文课程进行收听，英文课程由简·尼尔森本人讲述，对应中文内容是由中国的正面管教导师甄颖完成。谢谢您的订阅，希望您能有所收获。

【音频英文稿】

你好Ximalaya listeners. This is Dr. Jane Nelsen again with the great honour to share more positive discipline tools with you. In this session, I will be talking about some misconceptions about positive discipline and how positive discipline can be misunderstood and even misused in a way that is unhealthy for children. You may have heard, that in positive discipline, we do not believe in any form of punishment. WhenI first learned this, I was worried. Like many people, I believe that if children are not punished, the only other possibility is permissiveness. And I had tried permissiveness and didn't like it at all when my children started acting like spoiled brats. I was relieved to learn that Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs very strongly opposed permissiveness. They taught that it is a huge disservice to children if they are pampered because they don't learn responsibility and self discipline. The mistake so many parents make is that they think discipline means punishment. This is not true. Discipline means to teach or to follow a venerable leader. That is why I chose the title of Positive Discipline. Many people thought this meant that positive discipline would teach them to be as punishment in a positive way. This is not possible. 

Following are what I call the four ‘R’s of punishment. Number one is Resentment. The child might be thinking “this is unfair;I can't trust adults.” Number two is rebellion. The child might be thinking, “they can't make me,I'll do what I want.” Number three is revenge. The child might be thinking, “I’ll get even and hurt back, even if it hurts me.” I want to say something about this, because it is so prevalent today for children to believe that their homework, their grades, their school work is more important to their parents than they are. And this hurts. So they get even by failing on purpose, by resisting, by getting into arguments over their homework. They don't see how it can be for their own benefit, which we will talk about in a future podcast. The last R of punishment is retreat for in two different ways. One way is sneaking us where the child might be thinking, I won't get caught next time or the second way is reduce self worth where the child might be thinking “I am a bad person who can never be good enough”. 

Many parents are attracted to positive discipline because they want to avoid punishment. Maybe they were punished too harshly by their parents and don't want to do this to their children. These parents love the kind part of positive discipline, but they do not understand how important it is to be firm. When the firm part is missing, they go to the extreme of becoming permissive parents. They pamper their children in the name of love, their children become spoiled. In China, this is sometimes called “the little emperor”. This can create a real dilemma for children because their parents want their children to feel loved and they want them to be successful in life. When parents are permissive, they don't help their children learn the qualities and life skills needed for success. It is not loving to deprive your children of the opportunity to develop the skills to feel significant, responsible and capable as well as belonging, feeling loved. I love to use the example of the mother bird. There comes a time when the mother bird knows that she must push her child out of therest. So the baby bird will learn to fly. The baby bird doesn't want to bepushed out of the nest, but the mother bird is wise enough to know her babybird will not survive long unless he learns to fly. Your child may not want to be responsible, but I can promise that in the long run, your child will do much better in life if she feels capable and significant by being responsible. Some parents believe that being firm is the same as being mean. However, firm can be kind when you combine kindness and firmness with the tool ofConnection before Correction. The following are six examples of how you can kindly make a connection before being firm. Pretend you're a child and notice what you would be thinking and feeling and decided about yourself and what you would be deciding to do if you were hearing these statements:

Number one, you can first validate your child's feelings: “I know it is hard to stop playing. And it is time for dinner”. Number two, you can show understanding. “I can understand why you would rather watch TV than do your homework. And homework needs to be done first”. Number three, you can use humor and redirection. “You don't want to brush your teeth, and I don't want to pay dentist bills. I'll race you to the bathroom.” Number four, you can validate feelings and then kindly and firmly follow through on an agreement you made with the child in advance. “I know you don't want to do your chores. And what was our agreement about when they would be done?” Kindly and firmly wait for an answer. Number five, you can validate feelings and firmly offer a choice. “You don't want to go to bed and it is bedtime. Is it your turn to read a book or mine?” Number six, you can validate feelings, offer a choice, and then kindly and firmly follow through by deciding what you will do. “I know you want to keep playing video games, and your time is up. You can turn it off now, or it will be put in my closet.” You'll notice that the word was AND in between. to be the connection, to do the connection words which are kind and then use “and “and followed by the firmness. Remember the lists we created in the last lesson. I hope you created your own list of the qualities in life skills you want for your child. If you pretended you were a child listening to the statements I just made, take a look at your qualities and life skills list to see how many of them you would be learning by listening to the kind and firm statements. 

So you now know that positive discipline does not advocate either extreme a permissiveness or punishment. So what else is there? We cannot tell parents to stop using punishment and to stop being permissive without telling them what they can do that is very effective to help children develop the qualities and characteristics we want for them. Well, that is what positive discipline is all about. It is filled with parenting tools that will help you respond to challenges in ways that are kind and firm, and help children feel belonging, loved and significant, responsible. 

Recently, I created anew activity. If you have a deck of positive discipline tool cards, create three piles. One pile will be for the tools that help children feelbelonging, loved. Another pile is for the two cards that help children feel significant, responsible and capable. The third pile is for tool cards that help children feel both belonging and significance. You will see how many tools there are that help children feel loved and how many tools there are that help them feel significant and responsible.

When you do this activity, you may not understand how to apply all of the suggestions in the deck of positive discipline parenting tool cards. But you can look forward to learning more about these tools, as we continue these podcasts. I want to again, to remind you how important it is to remember the basic principles discussed in the last lesson, because the tools are not effective unless they are based on these foundation principles. Number one, everyone, including children, wants to be treated with dignity and respect. Number two, everyone, including children, wants to belong and to feel significant. Number three, everyone, especially children, need encouragement, like a plant needs water. So these basic principles have to be underneath every tool you use. In the next lesson, we will go even deeper into the positive discipline philosophy to understand how positive discipline is different from other parenting programs, and to share more tools to help your children develop the qualities and life skills you want for them.