The 4 Benefits Of Positive Discipline In Parenting
Educating is not easy at all. Parenting is a real challenge for any parent, whether new or veteran with an older child.
In fact, Parenting is a feat that very often moms and dads are not sure how to approach There is no miraculous formula that will help us educate in a perfect and infallible way, since human nature is imperfect and some mistakes will always be made unintentionally, but fortunately there are various educational methods and currents that will make our way of raising the more suitable.
Among the methodologies that stand out the most when it comes to parenting, we have the popular positive discipline a parenting method that promotes education without conditions.
Positive discipline in parenting, unlike traditional education based only on rewards and punishments, teaches parents tools to understand what needs and motivations are behind their children’s behavior and, once they understand it, they will be able to manage it much better. Let’s see what they are The main benefits of positive discipline when raising children.
To understand the suitability of positive discipline in parenting, we will first review the main parenting styles that exist. The best known and considered to be the most common are three: authoritarian, permissive and democratic.
1. Authoritarian parenting
In authoritarian parenting The adult does not consider the child as a subject of rights and resorts to commanding, dominating, intimating and punishing the child
In order not to be punished, the child must be completely submissive to parental authority, internalizing the idea that the parents are the ones in charge in the family and no debate is accepted.
The permissive parenting style could be seen as radically opposite to the authoritarian model, although not much better.
Here parents and caregivers do not establish limits or rules with the children, and on many occasions they are completely unconcerned to satisfy their needs or educate them. There are even parents who go so far as to maintain that their children’s bad behavior is the fault of others or give in to everything to avoid conflicts.
3. Democratic upbringing
Finally, we have the democratic parenting model, in which parents and caregivers know, understand and respond appropriately to the needs of their children.
Here a relationship is established based on good treatment, becoming models and guides for the children, attending to their needs and establishing clear rules and limits It combines affection and firmness, respect for both parties.
The democratic parenting model is strongly based on positive discipline, a method that has its origins in the theories of Alfred Adler (1870-1937), Austrian doctor and psychotherapist.
Main benefits of positive discipline
These are the main benefits of positive parenting, which can be experienced by both fathers and mothers and the little ones in the house.
1. Helps satisfy two basic needs
Adler who understood that the first two needs that every human being has are the following:
Starting from these two needs and relating it to its method, the idea of positive discipline is that children learn to live with others (belonging) and that their lives acquire meaning (significance)
2. Helps get out of the logic of blind obedience
Experts who advocate positive discipline in parenting often describe and criticize the most common parenting method, which is usually based on obedience.
It is not unusual to observe that the main way of parenting of fathers and mothers involves the establishment of vertical relationships where the adult rules and the child has to obey.
To this day, many continue to understand the idea of “discipline” as severity, rigidity and punishments, even though this idea really implies teaching, turning the child into someone responsible for his own behavior and reflective of it.
That this method continues to be used as the main way of raising children clashes with the fact that, at this point in history, it is already known that the infant human brain sees obedience as something too abstract In fact, it is so abstract that the only way many adults have to “get” such an idea into their heads is through fear or compensation.
However, the ideal would be to teach obedience to children based on respect, making them admire the person they have to obey.
Adler maintained that all human beings deserve the same respect, regardless of our age Therefore, if as parents we show the boy or girl that they can trust us, and we take their wishes and needs into account, we will get our child to respect us and imitate our behavior by considering us a role model.
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3. Helps harness the potential of parents as role models
Positive discipline implies that parents and children respect each other, making the former an inspiration for the latter
Fathers and mothers should not forget that their role is to act as guides and companions in their children’s experiences. This role that parents must assume and fulfill is so important that, from the perspective of this methodology, a lot of work is done on the management of emotions in adults.
Children understand the world from what they observe, taking adults and important peers as models or people worthy of imitation, with parents being the main references, both in the good and the bad. Thus, boys and girls will introduce into their behavioral and emotional repertoire the behaviors and emotions that they see from their parents in certain situations.
For example, if his father behaves calmly even when something unexpected happens, the child will learn to be calm when something doesn’t go well. That’s why, For the child’s management to be the most appropriate and regulated, it is necessary for the adult to learn to manage their own emotions first
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4. Helps see beyond punishments
Expert advocates of positive discipline in parenting maintain that Bad behaviors are, in reality, bad decisions made by the boy or girl regarding the search for belonging
That is to say, a child wants to be taken into account, he wants to feel that he is part of a group but, since he is too young and inexperienced to know how to do it in a non-disruptive or socially acceptable way, he makes a bad decision, something that adults see it as bad behavior or bad attitude.
Applying positive discipline in parenting, Parents learn to see their children’s needs and meet them appropriately
This is essential to understand, because it will contribute to changing the “chip”, since the infant’s bad behavior should not be penalized in the form of punishments to see if his unwanted behavior can be extinguished, but rather explain to him how he should behave appropriately.
Furthermore, we must try to connect with them, understand why the boy or girl behaves that way and see if there is a solution or, one way or another, their bad behavior lies in some type of negligence on our part.
