Nina Silberstein

Marianne McGinnis’ 10-year-old son was always urinating on the toilet seat instead of picking the lid up. Marianne tried scolding, pleading, begging and punishing, but nothing seemed to change his behavior.

Through a “Positive Discipline” workshop, Marianne McGinnis learned something she calls “making connection before correction.” She began to understand that a needy child is a discouraged child who needs to be encouraged.

According to Jane Nelsen, Ed.D., licensed marriage, family and child counselor who has authored and co-authored numerous parenting books, including “Positive Discipline,” this method of parenting creates an atmosphere where children are treated with dignity and respect as they are given the chance to explore and acknowledge their feelings. They are then encouraged and empowered to be part of the solution.

According to Nelson, positive discipline is an alternative way of raising kids that’s designed to develop the self-discipline, responsibility, cooperation, confidence and other life skills that help create happy, contributing members of families, classrooms and society. It involves mutual respect as opposed to bossing. The old standby, “Don’t do this, don’t do that” is flipped around, removing the “Don’t” and replacing it with “You can.”

Giving punishment a time-out
“Even when people think punishment works, I always have to ask, ‘At what cost?’” Nelsen says. “Punishment makes children pay. Positive Discipline that has nothing to do with punishment helps children feel good about themselves and learn the skills for solving problems.”

Positive discipline contends that children do better when they feel better. Parents make a connection using the reasoning that children are more cooperative when they feel respected, she says.

Which is just what Margaret did after the workshop. “I told my son, ‘You know I am going to love you even if you pee on the toilet seat every day for the rest of your life, but I would appreciate it so much if you didn’t.’” Her son stopped the behavior.

“It is non-punitive methods that consider long-term results in helping children develop what I call valuable social and life skills for good character,” says Nesen. Rather than using punishment to make a child pay for what he’s done, Positive Discipline involves the child in the solution to help motivate him. “Help him learn from his mistakes.”

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