Sustainable Parenting

57. How to be Kind & Firm (Part 1), with Jane Nelsen: Co-Founder of Positive Discipline

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach • Season 1 • Episode 57

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Struggling to find the right way to guide your kids?

Join us on a journey with parenting expert Jane Nelsen as we uncover the secrets of positive discipline!✨ She'll offer gentle guidance on striking the perfect balance between kindness and firmness when it comes to raising our little ones.

Over the next three weeks, Jane will share a treasure trove of tips for moms and dads who want to boost their kids' confidence, strength, and skills.

Together, we'll explore the wisdom of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs to learn how to navigate the challenges of modern parenting. Sometimes, we might find ourselves being too lenient with our kids, unintentionally spoiling them instead of helping them grow like butterflies emerging from their cocoons.

But fret not, Jane reminds us that punishment isn't the answer to misbehavior. It just leads to misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

 BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL KNOW:

  • The long-term benefits of positive discipline over the temporary fix of punishment or permissive parenting. 
  • Key phrases that help you to get better cooperation from kids.
  • How to teach and guide your child to better behavior, rather than trigger your child's rebellion, revenge or retreat. 


You can learn more about Positive Discipline HERE, and access Jane's powerful tools and books here.

Click here to register for the Positive Discipline In Person Conference in Atlanta: https://positivediscipline.org/event-5540049

✨Want more?

1) Use this link for a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting.

2) Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen

Flora McCormick:

Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, where we're incredibly honored today to get to speak with Jane Nelsen. Jane is the mother of seven and is the co-author of the Positive Discipline series, which has sold over 2 million copies worldwide, and co-founder of a worldwide training program through the Positive Discipline Association, which is now in over 90 countries around the world, and someone who I have admired and followed since I found you in 2009. So it has been a journey. You are my top mentor and I'm just incredibly honored to be able to speak with you today and have you share with our Sustainable Parenting audience your wisdom.

Jane Nelsen:

Thanks for having me, flora. It's really good to see you again. Thank you, and can I also say that my website is positivediscipline. com, but the association is positivediscipline. org and they have so much material also about where the classes are. We're having our positive discipline conference in Atlanta July 12th. That's open to the public, anybody who wants to come, if they live in that area, of course. Then we do our think tanks for all our trainers to come and practice our new skills.

Flora McCormick:

Wonderful, yes, and I can say I've gone through many different trainings on how to you know learning theories around parenting and child development, and yours is so unique in terms of all of the experiential activities and the way that you teach through looking out the eyes of a child standing in the shoes of a child. It's just so different, Jane, and I really appreciate you.

Jane Nelsen:

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's the part of the role playing is the parents get to role play what it's like to be the child and notice what they're thinking, feeling and deciding, and so they can then translate that and learn the more encouraging way. So it's nice to thank you for sharing it with so many people.

Flora McCormick:

Yes, it's one short interruption before we dive in with Jane Nelson. I want to say that she had so many wonderful things to say that I have split this interview into three sections and so that you can truly absorb all the amazing tips and tools that she has. So, without further ado, here is Jane Nelson with part one of kindness and firmness at the same time, the foundations of positive discipline. Well, let's dive in, Jane. So we said we wanted to talk today about this topic of kindness and firmness at the same time and this is one of my favorite sayings of yours favorite key focuses. One of the main phrases I think of is I love you? And the answer is no.

Flora McCormick:

Parents always love that phrase. It's like yes, that really says it all. So I wondered could you elaborate on what does it mean to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and why is it important to kids two through 12?

Jane Nelsen:

Well, all kids even. There's three main parenting methods or models. There's the punishing punishment, and the thing about that is that is always firm but not kind. And then there's permissiveness, which is usually kind without being firm, and so there are these extremes, and neither one is effective. And so they say, okay, but how do you do it? And that's what we're going to actually go into, the philosophy of why it's so important, brain research and all of that before we.

Jane Nelsen:

As you know, this is all based on the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreykers, and when I was a parent, I loved the philosophy and I loved so many of the tips I got, but in so many cases, there were things that said what it was but didn't give examples, or that didn't tell you what it really looked like at all. So I wanted all the positive discipline books to have lots of how-tos, lots of tools. Okay, this is what doesn't work, but this is what does work, and very specific. What are the things that we always start with and what are the challenges that parents have? Yes, and what are the characteristics and life skills they want their children to learn? And what is so interesting about that is they're the same. The lists are the same in every country. Wow, so, no, so, no matter how much difference we have in cultures and customs and all of that, when it comes to our children, we all love our children and we all are having the same challenges and we all want the same things for them. Yeah, and so that just is is so, so much fun.

Jane Nelsen:

But here's where we get to this whole idea of kind and firm. Where did we ever get the crazy idea that to make children do better first, we have to make them feel worse? Yeah, now that's what punishment is based on. Absolutely, and it's interesting to me when people say well, does that mean you're just going to let kids do whatever they want? Absolutely not. Children do better when they feel better, when they can ask their rational brains. Now, of course, this is where it's easy for parents to make the mistake and do pampering. Well, that makes them feel good. I'm going to give them whatever they want. That makes them feel good, not that kind of good, and you'll understand better as we keep going. So, as we just talk, punishment is designed to make children pay for their mistakes. Yes, Positive discipline is designed to help children learn from their mistakes, and oh, so this is where we were going to do that. Example of curiosity questions.

Flora McCormick:

Wonderful.

Jane Nelsen:

Are you ready? I'm ready, let me just what we're going to do is we're going to ask the audience to pretend you're children, and one of us is going to be the non-positive discipline parent and the other is going to be the positive discipline parent and you see if you can tell which is which. So all of you pretending you're children. Right, here we go, Go brush your teeth.

Flora McCormick:

What do you need to do so your teeth won't feel scuzzy? Don't forget your coat. What are you taking so you won't be cold outside? Go to bed. What's your plan for or excuse?

Jane Nelsen:

me what is next in your bedtime routine chart?

Flora McCormick:

Do your homework. What's your plan for doing?

Jane Nelsen:

your homework. Stop fighting with your homework. What's your plan for doing your homework?

Flora McCormick:

Stop fighting with your brother. How can you and your brother solve this problem?

Jane Nelsen:

put your dishes in the dishwasher.

Flora McCormick:

What did we decide about what we do with our dishes when we finished eating?

Jane Nelsen:

Hurry up and get dressed or you'll miss the bus.

Flora McCormick:

What do you need to do so you can catch the bus on time?

Jane Nelsen:

Yes, and if you're all live, we would ask which one made you feel more like you wanted to cooperate and which one made you feel more like you wanted to cooperate and which one made you feel more like you'd like to rebel. And you'll notice that the I was the telling telling. Telling telling which just invites usually resistance or rebellion. And Flora was asking a question. We call them curiosity questions that are designed and they have to be asked in a respectful way, but they're really designed to help. Children want to talk because you know when we ask them to ask what they're thinking, they always share that they're feeling respected, that just they feel more listened to and more likely to cooperate and to, but they just feel respected and I guess that's you know. If you say that we just want to maintain dignity and respect for everyone concerned, I also feel like people say sometimes when I do that workshop that it's also like I feel like an equal.

Flora McCormick:

I feel like that curious part of my brain, that problem solving part of my brain is firing, instead of the just no reflexive part of my brain.

Jane Nelsen:

You know, with those curiosity questions, Well, you know, and that is such an important part you know, one just invites. It's physiology. Yeah, you know, when somebody makes a demand, your body will stiffen and you'll just get tight and resistant. But when you're asked respectfully a curiosity question, yes, the body relaxes. The message that goes to the brain is search for an answer and you're just feeling that engaged in that respect and and what that desire brings out, I think, the natural desire of children to want to cooperate. Yeah, so anything else you wanted to say?

Flora McCormick:

about that. Oh, and I also just wanted to add yeah, when you say they're carefully crafted, it is not a question like will you or can you right? Will you get picked this up, can you come over here? I think is somehow the first way people think of making questions to kids. But these are so much more specifically crafted with starting with a what or a how or a where that make them effective.

Jane Nelsen:

Right, and you just said that they're designed to invite children to feel respected and to feel like cooperating and to learn life lessons in a way that is palatable.

Flora McCormick:

Totally, I mean, I think of. Also, parents are always like why can't he think for himself? Why do I have to tell him everything that needs to get done? And it's like if you've never given their brain a chance to make that frontal cortex work, then it doesn't grow, it doesn't start working on its own.

Jane Nelsen:

Make that frontal cortex work, then it doesn't grow, it doesn't start working on its own, exactly, and so in the activity we have even designed curiosity questions for younger children. By the way, this does make me want to say that I taught childhood development for 10 years at a community college and really learned that even with positive discipline, there are some tools that are just not appropriate. They're not age appropriate, and so this is one of the reasons why we wrote a whole book on positive discipline the first three years. Yeah, because so many parents don't understand age appropriateness and brain development. And since I brought that up now, I was going to tell this later, but I want to tell it now.

Jane Nelsen:

You know one mother who said but I have to spank my child to teach him not to run in the street. And I said well, let me ask you this After you have spanked him, will you now let your two-year-old play in front of a busy street unsupervised? And she said, well, no. And I said well, what if you spank him a hundred times Now? Will you let him play in front of a street unsupervised? She said, well, no, because at some instinctual level she knows he's not old enough to help handle that responsibility, and so it's just kind of crazy making that she thinks that she's doing him a service to spank him, yeah, when she doesn't know or doesn't really think it through, no. Uh. So we just really do have to have different designs and different things that are age appropriate, according to all the child development experts like Piaget and.

Jane Nelsen:

Eric Erickson. That's what I love is what is the possibility of this one being out 30 years now and it just still fits. In fact, if anything, some people say, well, it's getting old. I ask when is it old and when is it a classic? When is it a classic? Because it a classic, because it fits all, even the latest research, not just the old research, but absolutely and and so uh instead of uh.

Jane Nelsen:

Punishment is designed to make children pay for their mistakes, but positive discipline is designed to help children learn from their mistakes and we're going to mention mistakes again later too, because it's so important both from parents' mistakes and children's mistakes. So curiosity questions help children explore the consequences of their choices, not that they have to experience the consequences, but for them to understand what they are. The consequences Now to me. I don't think that many people have thought this through, but the three R's of punishment is rebellion A lot of kids are going to, they can't make me, I'll do what I want. And the other R is revenge I'll get even and hurt back, even if it hurts my future and another child might retreat into low self-esteem. I must be a bad person, sneaky, I just won't get caught next time.

Jane Nelsen:

So you know, this is why we always go back to those two lists after we do our experiential activities and ask them, as children, in these roles what were you learning? What were you deciding? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What were you deciding? Because that's what we're always looking at Are we getting what we want? Are we helping them develop the characteristics and life skills we want for them, or are we teaching them rebellion, revenge or retreat?

Jane Nelsen:

But so then people think well, the other opposite is permissiveness, but permissiveness teaches children. I am the center of the universe and I'm not capable and I can't survive disappointment. Uh, and, as Dreiker said, that children need encouragement like a plant needs water. But he also says don't do anything for children that they can do for themselves. And so many parents say well, that's just, I'm just showing love and that's. You know, we wrote a whole book on parents who love too much, because of really illustrating how important it is that children, that parents, do not do these things, that instead of, uh, feeling love, they feel entitled yes the, the universe.

Jane Nelsen:

Love means I get whatever I want and the universe only cares mostly about me, which is not good in future relationships, marriage, the workplace. So I wanted to just show you this. This is such a fun video slide here because this is my grandson when he was only two years old, and there he is trying to put his brother's t-shirt on. Now I always ask parents when they see this. I say how many of you would want to rush in and help? And every single one they want to rush in and help. Oh, and I'm one of those. That was always.

Flora McCormick:

it still is hard for me. I'm like, oh honey, I'll just help you, hold on.

Jane Nelsen:

I know we mean. Well, we're doing it in the name of love, we just. This is why it's so important to understand the long-term results, because my daughter Mary, instead of rushing to help, she went to get her camera, and so here's the second one. He's still struggling. He just can't quite get it. I mean, how can you stand it not to go in?

Flora McCormick:

and help.

Jane Nelsen:

Yes, still struggling down here. And then, finally, his head, little pokes, head, pokes through. And look at the look on his face.

Flora McCormick:

The smile of pride and confidence is huge.

Jane Nelsen:

Yeah, and I just say, we rob our children of those opportunities.

Flora McCormick:

Yes, he's not struggling.

Jane Nelsen:

He's learning and we just put it into our minds that, oh, he's struggling and I'm to be a good mom, I've got to run in and help, yes, and that's the oh.

Flora McCormick:

Go ahead. Yeah, I know you're gonna go ahead. Well, I just think this is something that we're parents, we create our own worst problem, our own big struggle, by thinking that you know, any amount of struggle in the child means that we're hurting them or we're doing something wrong, as opposed to trusting the process. That's okay for them to grow, struggle muscles Like that's what I see in that picture of him is learning, grit and determination.

Jane Nelsen:

Exactly, and I just got one of the answer sheets from somebody who is becoming a positive discipline trainer, facilitator, and you could just tell when she did her activity on the sacred goal how she wanted so much to be a good mother. But this little child is becoming a tyrant who would not go to bed if she didn't read her five stories, who insisted on what she was going to eat. I mean, it's just really like a little king or princess thinking so we really need to avoid pumperin. And I love telling the story of the little boy and the butterfly. And he was watching the caterpillar change into a butterfly and as he watched it he felt so sorry for the struggle of the butterfly that he tore the chrysalis open and he was just so excited as he watched that butterfly fly off into the sky. But then he was horrified as the butterfly fell to the ground and died because it hadn't built its muscles.

Jane Nelsen:

And this is what we are not letting our children develop their capability muscles. When we help them develop the perception that I am capable, and it doesn't matter how many times we tell them they are, they're not going to believe it unless they experience it, and so we need to give even little kids you know. So in our book on the first three years, me do it, me do it and we say no, honey, you're too little, Instead of just saying okay, I appreciate your help and giving them as many ways to help as possible while they want to do it and helping them develop that belief they're capable.

Flora McCormick:

I love that story. Thank you so much, jane, and yes, I always hear your words like. Competence is what really builds confidence.

Jane Nelsen:

Exactly. And how do they get competence? Not by us doing everything for them, but by giving them, letting them. You know they want to help. They say me, do it me, do it me, do it when they're two, and then when they're four. No, you taught me, I don't need to do it, you do it for me. So we just always have to be thinking what is the child learning based on what I'm doing?

Flora McCormick:

Well, and can I ask one question here, jane? I think a key thing parents say here is if I can play devil's advocate for people that might be listening is like but what if I don't have time? Like, everyone lives in this very rushed, busy life and those struggle muscle moments like the t-shirt takes time, it takes extra amount of time, or me do it often. It's going to take longer. What's your thought about that?

Jane Nelsen:

parenting. I just have to ask did anybody tell you that parenting didn't take time? Yes, it takes time, that's what it comes down to. But see, sometimes they're spending their time in doing things for the child that really it saves you time if you're willing to teach them the skills, all about all of these tools.

Flora McCormick:

That's what helps you.

Jane Nelsen:

Right and have the courage to be imperfect.

Flora McCormick:

Yeah, binding those two together, as mentioned at the beginning of this interview. Friends, this is part one, and we will be continuing the conversation with Jane Nelson to talk more about the mistaken goals that lead our kids into misbehavior and the ways that we can use specific phrases and strategies and approaches to be kind and firm at the same time. Can't wait to see you again next week. Friends, and remember, friends, if you get value from today's episode, please share it with a friend and leave a review at the bottom of the main podcast homepage by scrolling to the bottom of all episodes, leaving a comment about why you enjoyed the podcast and you could be featured as our listener of the week, winning a special free course in an upcoming episode.