Positive Discipline: Educating From Mutual Respect
In recent years there has been a change in education on the part of fathers and mothers, who work for an increasingly conscious education and that takes into account the global well-being of young people. This has led to more and more families becoming interested in finding a different way of educating their children, one that leaves aside the most authoritarian traditional punitive methods.
But on this path of transition we also find ourselves fathers and mothers lost, disoriented, who have fallen into overprotection when trying to avoid authoritarianism, since they lack tools that allow them to find a middle ground between both educational styles. And these fathers, mothers, and also educators, ask themselves, is education possible without rewards or punishments, without my son ending up being a tyrant?
Fortunately, it is possible, thanks to the methodology of mutual respect, positive discipline
Fathers, mothers and educators. We have in our hands the responsibility to improve the world, promoting an education based on respect for others, an education based on love, understanding, and the use of error as a learning opportunity… and not on anger, not on blackmail, not on vertical relationships that only generate discomfort and power struggles between parents and sons. This humanistic claim is what forms the basis of positive discipline.
This discipline has its origins in the individualistic psychology of Alfred Adler. Adler already explained that all people, in all situations, have the right to be treated with the same dignity and respect. And for this reason he understood that the person, as a social being, needs to build a sense of community through some key aspects, namely: belonging, and significance. That is to say, human beings have the need to belong and be part of the various systems they make up (the family, groups, community…) and to feel that they are important in said system, that what they do contributes and is useful. .
Likewise, Adler was able to verify through his work that children who lacked affection and love developed behavioral problems; In the same way that children who grew up without limits, they could also have many difficulties in developing their long-term skills.
When the child feels that these aspects of belonging and meaning are not guaranteed, what we understand as “bad behavior” appears. Dreikurs, a disciple of Adler, went further and said that A child who misbehaves is just a discouraged child and coined the term we know as “democratic education.”
Understanding democratic education
This democratic education is based on the application of the fundamental principle of kindness and firmness at the same time Kindness as respect towards the child, firmness as respect towards myself as an adult and towards the situation. With both things in balance we can carry out an education that is respectful for everyone, and teaches children the most important thing, life skills.
In this way we create a respectful environment where we can teach, and where children can learn, freed from negative feelings such as shame, guilt, pain or humiliation, and therefore feel, through connection, that belonging, significance, and contribution , it’s possible. In this way we help the child explore for himself the possible consequences of his actions, empowering him to create capable boys and girls.
The objectives of positive discipline
Positive discipline focuses on the long term understanding that the child’s behavior, what we observe (crying, having a tantrum,…) is only the tip of the iceberg, but that underneath it, there are deeper feelings, needs and beliefs that are forged in the child based on to the decisions they are making.
If we abandon the urge to immediately correct bad behavior, we can move on to validate the child’s feelings, and connect before correcting, trying to understand the interpretation that children make about themselves and the world, and what they are feeling, thinking and deciding at each moment to survive and thrive in the world. . One more step to get closer and empathize with them!
Positive discipline is based, therefore, on or An education that does not use rewards, but does motivate and encourage. An education that does not punish, but does focus on solutions. An education in which limits are as necessary to guide children as love and respect. Because, as Jane Nelsen, the leading figure in the dissemination of this methodology, said, whose absurd idea was that for a child to behave well, you must first make him feel bad?
And that is what we make a child feel when we use punishment which we can summarize in 4 Rs: resentment, desire for revenge, rebellion, and withdrawal (feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem).
In short, an education that models skills, which teaches the courage to be imperfect accompanying through trust, which takes into account the needs of children and respects the child’s nature, which encourages the child to gradually learn self-regulation skills and become a competent, capable, and self-motivated adult.
