Positive Discipline: Workbook for Kids and Parents
Basic skills for raising happy, self-confident children of all ages.
Conducted by Richard A. Shulman, Ph.D.
With portions written by Erik Erikson and taken from Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s book, How to Talk so Your Kids Will Listen and How to Listen so Your Kids Will Talk.
Erik Erikson’s Stages of Child Development
Key points: Universal stages of development that all people go through in their life span. Each stage involves a critical learning task that we will use throughout our life.
Erikson is a Psychoanalytic theorist who utilized Freud’s five psychosexual stages of development. These stages represent the fixation of the libido on different areas of the body. Erikson used this model to create his own developmental stages and called them “psychosocial stages of development.”
Unlike Freud, each stage represents a milestone and a ratio of development which allows the person to go back to the various stages to fix or heal from the primary injuries. With each stage the individual goes through a conflict and comes out with a percentage of a resolution.
Active Listening Skills
(page 9)
As explained by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Key Points: Help children deal with their feelings. Children need to have their feelings accepted and respected.
How to:
- Listen quietly and attentively.
- Acknowledge their inner feelings with a single word: “Oh… Mmm… I see… Interesting… Really?…”
- Help the child give the feeling a name: “That sounds fun!” or “That sounds frustrating!”
- Give the child his wishes in fantasy: “I wish I could buy that toy for you right now!”
Goal: ACCEPT ALL FEELINGS and LIMIT CERTAIN ACTIONS
Ways to Improve a Child’s Cooperation
(page 57 and 75)
Key Points: Help the parent deal with their feelings. Parents need to have their feelings accepted and respected.
How to:
- Describe what you see, or describe what the problem is: “There is a wet towel on my bed.”
- Give information: “The towel is getting my bed wet.”
- Say it with a word: “Towel!”
- Describe what you feel with “I” messages: “I don’t like sleeping in a wet bed!”
- Write a note: (above the towel rack) “Please put me back so that I can dry.”
Goal: FOCUS ON HELPING THE PARENTS DEAL WITH THEI OWN FRUSTRATIONS AND NEGATIVE FEELINGS
Positive Discipline/Compliance
(page 95-101)
As explained by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Key Points: Act out of insight not frustration. Children need to experience the consequences of their behavior.
How to:
- Express your feelings strongly – without attacking the child’s character: “I’m furious that my brand new saw was left outside and is rusting from the rain!’
- State your expectations: “I expect my tools to be returned to the tool box after they have been used.”
- Show the child how to make amends: “What this saw needs is a little steel wool and some elbow grease.”
- Give your child a choice: “You have two choices: you can borrow my tools and return them when you are done using them, or you can give up the privilege to use them. You decide.”
- Take action:Child: “Dad, why is your tool box locked?”Dad: “You tell me why it is locked.”
- Problem solving: “We have a problem that I would like to talk to you about. We need to figure out a plan so that you can use my tools when you need them, and I can ensure that they are there when I need to use them.”
Goal: CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT THAT PROMOTES A WIN-WIN ATMOSPHERE AND AVOIDS POWER STRUGGLES
Faber, A., & Mazlish, E. (1999). How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk: With a New Afterword: “The Next Generation” by Joanna Faber. New York, NY: Scribner.