Prevention Is The First Step In Positive Discipline For Children

Ever heard the saying: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? It's the same when it comes to Positive Discipline for Children. So that is why "child-proofing your life" is as critical as "baby-proofing your space".

Often we can foresee recipes for disaster, if you know your child is going to get into the cookies, put them up high.

If you don't want your child getting onto your computer, then don't make your computer so accessible for them, shut the door to your home office. Plan ahead and it will save time and energy in the future.

Prevention is the best way to get Non-Reaction. That's because kids simply react to the environment they live in, which is generally what parents have created.

If you create an environment where children spend hours zoning out on TV every day, then they will react by enacting the behaviors they see on TV and by becoming more passive in life and less ambitious.

That's especially true if you have siblings of a similar age. You want to child proof your house so that there are multiples of toys. - so you eliminate the opportunity for conflict over such things.

When you make sure each child has the same toy (color, shape, type, everything) then you'll be preventing a huge area of sibling rivalry.

Another example of prevention as a form of Positive Discipline for Children is how best to avoid arguing with your child over getting them to clean up. So how can you prevent this argument all together?  

Simple - you don't allow room for arguing by making it an unbendable law that your child cleans up after him or herself.  Not a law that is enforced by punishment or upheld by rewards.  But you just position it so that cleaning toys is simply what happens.  

So to whatever excuse or argument your child comes up with you simply answer:  "That just what we do."  

Notice the "we"?  You need to make your child feel connected to you and to the family.  This makes your child much more cooperative, as they begin to feel a part of the whole and not so much that they've been isolated to do something they don't want to do.  

Then, you just don't allow for any room from deviation from the task.  So you don't let your child do anything he or she wants to do until they clean their room.   If they just sit there and refuse to do anything - then let them sit there.

Don't punish them with no dinner or anything, but they need to know that it's just what everyone does - they clean up after themselves.  And they need to help before they can move on to playing or doing something else they want to do.  

By taking this firm stance, your child will soon learn that arguing with you or defying you is useless - and that cooperating with you is the simplest way for them.

Here's something that you can do right now: tuck away anything that poses a possible hazard for your little one.  Books, CD's, the crystal vase, anything that you don't want them touching or getting into. The same goes for keeping anything that might make a mess out of reach too.

This will reduce the likelihood of them doing something that you don't want them to be doing but more important it's your first step in Positive Discipline for Children.