Tag Archive for: Capable

How to Use Positive Discipline to Stop Power Struggles and Raise Empowered Capable Kids with Jane Nelsen

Special guest: Dr. Jane Nelsen.
Children are always learning- and yes, they also make a lot of mistakes. Whether they are fighting with their siblings, tantruming about bedtime, missing the bus, forgetting their homework or talking back to you, it seems like there is a constant need for correction, apologies and do-overs. At the same time, there are all kinds of parents and teachers out there who witness such mistakes—from people who watch children act out or mess up and punish them or deliver punitive consequences immediately—to those who are incredibly permissive—who see children do something undesired and simply turn the other cheek and say; “kids will be kids.” Many parents and educators fall somewhere in between or vacillate between the two extremes of punitive and permissive.

Of course, most parents and teachers are just trying to figure out how to raise children who are kind, responsible, cooperative and self-disciplined. But what if I told you that there are many parenting and teaching skills that we can talk about right now that are non-punitive and not permissive—but would help children learn self-discipline, responsibility, and problem-solving skills—helping them to grow up into adults who can use these skills throughout their lives? Whether you are trying to get the kids to school on time, get everyone to agree on a movie for movie night or get from place to place without someone yelling or kicking or needling someone else in the car, we all deal with power struggles and frustration. Today, we’ve got positive discipline expert, Jane Nelsen on the show—and she’s going to help us learn how to be both kind and firm, connect with our children, give them a sense of belonging and significance—while helping them choose right from wrong.

Dr. Jane Nelsen is the mother of 7, grandmother of 22, and great grandmother of 13. She is also the author and co-author of many best-selling Positive Discipline books including Positive Discipline: The Classic Guide to Helping Children Develop Self-Discipline, Responsibility, Cooperation and Problem-Solving Skills and Positive Discipline Parenting Tools. An internationally known speaker and parenting expert, Jane is a California licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and received her doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of San Francisco.

How to Raise a Confident, Capable, Resilient Adult with Julie Lythcott-Haims

In her 2016 Ted Talk, Julie Lythcott-Haims started off by saying, “there’s a certain style of parenting these days that is kind of messing up kids, impeding their chances to develop into themselves. There’s a certain style of parenting these days that’s getting in the way. I guess what I’m saying is, we spend a lot of time being very concerned about parents who aren’t involved enough in the lives of their kids and their education or their upbringing, and rightly so. But at the other end of the spectrum, there’s a lot of harm going on there as well, where parenting feel a kid can’t be successful unless the parent is protecting and preventing at every turn and hovering over every happening and micromanaging every moment, and steering their kid towards some small subset of colleges and careers….our kids end up leading a kind of check-listed childhood, she goes on to say, such that, she warns that once they end up at the end of high school they are breathless—of course—they have spent so much time having been obsessed with grades and activities—becoming what they are supposed to be rather than exploring who they may want to become. What interests them. And knowing, with their own brains and experimenting with their own grit and their own skills—to develop into a self-sufficient, resilient adult. So it begs the question—what can we do to break free from the overparenting trap that says we must be on our children every minute prodding and directing, being our child’s concierge, as Julie Lythcott-Haims labels, and instead, preparing our children to become successful adults who can stand on their own two feet.