No-Drama Discipline

Our overall goal is not to punish or to give a consequence, but to teach.

The first step in effective discipline is to connect with our children emotionally.

What’s needed is a clear understanding of what you actually want to accomplish when your child misbehaves.

By asking ourselves these three questions…we can more easily shift out of autopilot mode.

A huge percentage of misbehavior is more about can’t than won’t.

The brain interprets pain as a threat. So when a parent inflicts physical pain on a child, that child faces an unsolvable biological paradox.

No-Drama Discipline actually builds a child’s brain. It strengthens neural connections between the upstairs and downstairs parts of the brain, and these connections lead to personal insight, responsibility, flexible decision making, empathy, and morality.

When your child is at his worst, that’s when he needs you the most. To connect is to share in your child’s experience, to be present with him, to walk through this difficult time with him.

Human behavior is purpose-driven most of the time.

What we say to our kids is of course important. But you know that just as important, if not more important, is how we say it.

Remember, there are plenty of ways to spoil children—by giving them too many things [...]—but we can never spoil them by giving them too much of our love and attention.

Every time a child gets specific and discusses his own emotional experience, he gains more insight into himself and deepens his own self-understanding.

You can feel whatever you feel, but you can’t always do whatever you want to do.

In emphasizing the positive, you give your focus and attention to the behaviors you want to see repeated.

Neuroplasticity shows us that the brain is amazingly changeable and adaptive across a lifetime. You can change the way you discipline at any age—yours or your child’s.