31（英）What can you do if the ideas conflicts between home and school

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你好。 Ximalaya’s subscribers, this is Dr. Jane Nelsen with another lessonon Positive Discipline. Today's topic is what can you do if the ideas of yourhome parenting conflicts with the method used in your child's school? First youcan know that you are not alone. Even though all the latest brain research andresearch on social emotional development has shown that the kind of method usedby positive discipline are the most encouraging for children develop healthyself-esteem and skills for successful living. There are thousands of parentsand teachers who still believe punishments and rewards are the best way tomotivate children.

One reason for this is thatmost of the research showing that punishment is not effective is buried inacademic journals and its not shared with the general public. Another reason isthat parents and teachers are not taught better tools to encourage and motivatechildren. How can they be expected to give up punishments and rewards when theydon't know what else to do? My guess is sometimes you aren't even sure ifpositive discipline is the best way. Have you ever wondered if it really worksto stop all punishment?

Were you ever afraid yourchild might not be motivated to do well in school and with household tasks, oreven getting dressed if you stopped nagging. Maybe you and your spouse don'tagree on how to pair it. Or maybe the grandparents don't agree with what youare doing. Some parents find it very upsetting that their own parents were sopunitive with them, but now spoil their grandchildren. In other words, it israre to find people who agree on the best discipline methods to use in parentingand the best methods to use in classrooms.

The good news is thatchildren can be very flexible. They know how to change their behavior dependingon with whom they are dealing. In some ways, having differences with others inyour family or with the teacher can be a good thing if you help your childlearn to deal with these differences effectively. Later, I will share specifictools to help you and your child navigate through these differences. But first,I want to share more about what is going on for teachers in many parts of theworld, and especially focusing on United States and China.

If your child is oldenough, you can share this information with them to help them learn and practiceempathy：“Teaching is a very tough job. Ask your child howshe would like to be in an overcrowded classroom with misbehaving children andnot have any training about how to deal with misbehavior, and ways that help children behave better. Becausethey feel as though they have been treated with dignity and respect and havebeen taught characteristics and life skills that helped them to be moresuccessful in life. Then ask your child what she is willing to do to help theteacher. For a moment. let's go back to the teacher's world again.

In 2013, Yourdon He conducted a large scale survey among 527Chinese primary schools’ teachers for his PHD thesis at York University. Yourdon He found that 45% of the participant teachersreported spending too much time on disciplining children. In the United States,teachers reported spending nearly half of their teaching hours dealing withstudents’ misbehavior. In addition, a number of researches who have conductedstudies on teacher’s stress found that classroom discipline is one of the mostcommon causes of teacher’s stress.

Many teachers who leave theprofession report that one of the reasons that caused them to give up teachingis having to deal with discipline in their classrooms. How many of you wouldwant to be a teacher and deal with behavior challenges if the only tools youhave been taught was punishment and rewards. Many schools in the United Statesstill use B.F Skinner model called behaviorism, which is based on punishmentsand rewards to motivate children. Even though research in hundreds ofuniversities have proven that behaviorism is not effective long term. childrenmay behave better to get the reward or to avoid the punishment, but theyhaven't learned self motivation to do the right thing when no one is looking.

Behaviorism was introducedin China during the first half of the 20 century and is used on most of thecountries throughout the world. Even though most teachers do not really like touse punishment, they don't know what else to do. And they keep using rewardsbecause most children like rewards and may behave better to get the reward. Thereason it doesn't work long term is that children become far more interested inthe reward that in doing good for themselves and for others to gain the innerreward, a feeling good for making contributions to their home and family andsociety.

So what can you do? Numberone, the first thing, as mentioned earlier, is to help your child understandhow hard it can be for teachers and brainstorm with your child how she can helpthe teacher. Number two, some teachers would love to hear about positivediscipline if you share what you have learned and how much has helped you,other teachers might feel offended because they interpret this as criticism.Number three, some parents choose to find a school where children are treatedwith dignity and respect, and our top positive discipline skills.

However, most parents can'tmove their children to another school for many reasons. The school of theirchoice might be too far away, or it may be too expensive. In this case, you canwork with your child to teach coping skills that could be useful throughout hisor her life. Number four, let your child know that you are available tobrainstorm with her on how to focus on solutions when faced with challenges.This can be effective long term as you use challenges to help your childdevelop problem solving skills.

Number five have regularfamily meetings. So the whole family can support your child with ideas to be encouragingto herself and to the teacher. Number six, have faith in your child to learnhow to deal with teachers who have different styles for dealing withdiscipline. Just yesterday, I asked one of my grandchildren how he felt whenhis teacher yelled at him. He said:” I just let it go in one ear and out theother, I don't get angry or talk back. I just keep doing the best I can do. ”

My grandson was able to dothis because he had learned to focus on solutions at home. Number seven，have faith in yourself.There may be many times when you become to punitive, even though you knowbetter. Remember, the mistakes are opportunities to learn. I made so manymistakes, even when I knew better, that I became very good at the art ofapologies. And then focusing on solutions. We always found that when we reallybelieved that mistakes and opportunities to learn and then focused on solutions，we could make ourrelationships and our skills better than if we had never made the mistake.

And remember that it isnever too late. One parent who shared that she thought positive discipline wascrazy when she first heard about it. She wondered what she would do if kidsweren't punished. She thought they would never do what they were supposed to doif she didn't nag at them, always reminding them what they needed to do. Shefinally got it when she took a positive discipline workshop and participated inour experiential activities and got into the child's world and discovered howdiscouraging she felt when she role played a child who was receivingpunishments or rewards.

Now she is a teacher in aschool that uses positive discipline and is so much happier. Not all storieshave this happy ending. Hopefully your story will have a happy ending. Even ifthe teachers at your school do not agree with your parenting style because youwill now have tools to help your child and yourself，make the best of thissituation by sharing coping skills with your child that will help her be moresuccessful throughout her life. I look forward to sharing more positivediscipline tools in future Ximalaya sessions.