HOW IS POSITIVE DISCIPLINE DIFFERENT?

The majority of discipline models practiced in homes and schools today are based on punishments and rewards. Positive Discipline is based on the Adlerian model of eliminating all punishment and rewards in favor of encouragement that addresses the basic needs of children to belong and feel significant. Our task is to help children find belonging and significance in socially useful ways.

We begin by understanding and addressing mistaken beliefs of children. A child’s behavior, like the tip of the iceberg below, is what you see. However, the hidden base of the iceberg (much larger than the tip) represents the belief behind the behavior, and the child’s deepest need for belonging and significance. Most parenting programs address only the behavior. Positive Discipline addresses both the behavior and the belief behind the behavior.

When children misbehave, they usually have a mistaken belief about how to gain a sense of belonging. The belief generates what parents call misbehavior. Most parents react to the behavior with some kind of punishment (blame, shame, or pain). This only confirms a child’s belief that he or she doesn’t belong, creating a vicious cycle.

Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs taught that a misbehaving child is a discouraged child. The discouragement comes from the belief “I don’t belong.” In most cases, this is shocking to parents. They wonder, “How can my child believe she doesn’t belong? How could she not know how much I love her? This doesn’t make sense.” Aha! You have now entered the realm of one of life’s greatest mysteries. How and why do children create their beliefs—especially when they don’t make sense to us? This is why it is so important to get into the child’s world to understand the child’s “private logic.” We all have our unique way of perceiving the world, yet sometimes parents forget that their children perceive the world differently than they do.

When children feel discouraged, they compensate through seeking Undue Attention, using Misguided Power, seeking Revenge or giving up through Assumed Inadequacy (see the Mistaken Goals chart). Once we recognize this, it helps us understand the importance of using tools that invite children to feel connected, empowered, respected and encouraged. If we can help change the discouraged belief underlying the behavior, it is more likely the behavior will also change.

Some parents have thought that Positive Discipline implies a positive way to use punishment. Actually, we don’t believe in punishment at all. In addition, we don’t believe in praise, punitive time-out, taking away privileges, or rewards. The Positive Discipline tools show how many discipline methods there are that do not include rewards or punishment. Research shows that punishment and rewards are not effective in the long term and in fact negatively impact things such as self-regulation, intrinsic motivation, and the quality of family relationships. We even discourage the use of logical consequences—at least most of the time. The reason for this is our discovery that many parents try to disguise punishment by calling it a “logical consequence.” 

Excerpt from Positive Discipline Parenting Tools Book

by Jane Nelsen, Mary Nelsen Tamborski, and Brad Ainge