Child Behavior Solutions Webinar: Child Discipline Without Punishments or Bribes.

0:00 hello everybody Welcome to our webinar on child discipline without punishments or bribes my name is Dr blae Ryan founder of parent learning club and author of democratic parenting so on this webinar you're going to learn three discipline rules for Democratic parenting and why punishments and bribes are actually the least effective way to discipline children we'll also learn some simple communication tricks that can help kids listen better and the real secret to having children respect and trust you also we'll talk about the most common mistake that most parents make when it comes to teaching their kids discipline so first who am I and what makes me an expert on child behavior and

0:46 why should you even listen to me well my name is Dr Blaise Ryan and I'm a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine so that means that I focus on treating the root cause of disease not just the symptoms and when I became a parent myself my training in Chinese medicine led me to question the standard approaches to Parenting from the old school authoritarianism approach to the modern-day permissiveness approach and I thought to myself you know might there not be a better way a simpler and easier way that's not so stressful for myself as a parent or for my child and so my desire to learn how to be a better parent led me to founding childrain health and parent learning club.com and um through my research and and through some dumb luck as well and just meeting

1:32 the right people at the right time I came across this method of parenting called Democratic parenting and I wrote a book on it uh which you can get on amazon.com which explains the whole thing now I didn't invent this term or come up with it I just tried to simplify the methods that uh that are used to to um to create this type of democratic environment in the family and with your children so that's uh enough about me let's talk about discipline and first off I want is it even possible to teach children self-discipline without using punishments bribes or Rewards well that's what we're going to explore in this webinar and first I want to start off by saying that um I don't have all

2:18 the answers because no one can tell you how to raise your child better than yourself all I want to do is explore the idea of using a more democratic approach to discipline or discipline from the heart instead of using fear-based discipline which is elicited through the punishments or through using bribes so what is discipline anyways well really what it's all about is just doing the right thing isn't it but you know we don't always know what to do like what the right thing to do is in any given moment but there's a paradox in that because even though sometimes we're not sure about the best way to proceed at any given moment or how to what the right thing to do is deep down inside we do know right from wrong so one of my

3:03 favorite children's stories is called the three questions by John J MTH and this is based on a story by Leo Tolstoy and I wanted to just kind of share parts of this story because it helps us kind of set the foundation for understanding uh a more democratic approach to discipline um so the in this story there was a a boy named Nikolai and he sometimes felt uncertain about the right way to act so he came up with three questions when is the best time to do things who is the most important one and what is the right thing to do and Nikolai had three friends uh a heron a monkey and a dog so the Heron answered the first question about the

3:50 best time to do things and and the Heron said to know the best time to do things one must plan in advance the monkey said you will know when to do things if you watch and pay close attention this is kind of funny because you can see from this picture that there's a coconut about to fall on his head and then the dog said you can't pay attention to everything yourself you need a pack to keep watch and help you decide when to do things so Nikolai thought about it and then asked the second question who is the most important one the Heron replied those who are close closest to Heaven obviously referring to um to the religious leaders the monkey said those who know how to

4:37 heal the sick obviously referring to doctors and healers and the dog growled those who make the rules obviously referring to those who are in power the boy then asked the third question and the his three friends answered as well and I won't to go into the whole story uh because we actually have a lot of information to cover during this webinar so I'm going to go through it all fairly quick so that we can get time to answer some questions but after um after the boy asked the three questions to his friends and they answered he was still unsatisfied so he went up the hill to visit an old sage who was a turtle and in in this journey he discovered the answers that he was seeking and here they are based upon uh Leo tol sto's original story and this is

5:24 a picture of uh Leo to sto's wife and daughter a painting so I thought I'd throw this in here to honor him for these three questions and answers and the answer to the first question was the most important time is now because it's the present that has the the power that's where the time that's where the power is is only in the present we can't affect the past and we're we have minimal power to affect the future as well the most important person is whoever you are with and the most important thing to do is to do good to the person who you are with and so this is the spirit in which we approach discipline from a non-punitive and non non-rewarding kind of perspective is to

6:10 try and teach children the right thing to do from from this perspective so how can we do that how can we teach them our children the right thing to do well we can you know we can obviously get them the story and and read that a few times but but still you know that doesn't affect them when they misbehave and and ultimately children deeply want to behave well so we have to kind of start in in our approach with children from the from the ground up from from when they were first born into this world innocent and filled with love and filled with brightness and children want to have our approval and they want to feel accepted and connected with with those that around them so they you know and they're also deeply aware of what's

6:56 fair and we you know as parents we see this all the time if especially when we're multiple children if one child feels that an interaction or an exchange was unfair and they're getting the short end of the stick well they're going to let us know about that real quick and so they they inherently have a strong sense of what's fair and what's right and what's wrong also I believe the children are naturally generous loving curious and empathetic because when I see children who have no stress and all their needs are met and they're in a in a loving nurturing envir environment then that's how they act so but why don't children always behave well because sometimes they downright misbehave but first on first off let's

7:41 explore why what's wrong with punishments and bribes and rewards to begin with so punishments it's it's a kind of forced coercion right and they don't they don't work long term and it uses fear of pain or loss whether that's um fear of physical pain or physical loss like something being taken away a toy or emotional pain of being scolded reprimanded humiliated or emotional loss of just having being isolated and taken away from uh from people and and the this type of force coercion is a is a a way to try to control the child but it all uses fear okay and um bribes corrupt the child's natural respect for the situational needs of everyone concerned and it paves

8:29 the way for selfishness greed entitlement and manipulative and deceitful behaviors okay and rewards you know in and of themselves using rewards to celebrate life and achievement can be great fun and there's actually nothing wrong with rewards but rewarding for good behavior and for just normal participation can easily have the same effects as bribes okay so that's something we really want to consider when we start to use rewards if it's just a way to bribe them into good behavior and respectful um group participation um you know or if it's just to or if it's just to celebrate life and achievements and new beginnings and these types of things which are a

9:14 wonderful thing to do so both punishments and rewards elicit fear they elicit uncertainty and stress in the child because we have fear of the punishment okay and we have fear of not getting the reward which is like a punishment itself if we promise them a reward if they're if they're going to be good on this specific thing then they're going to be uh behaving out of fear of not getting the reward which is um you know is the the lack of a privilege or something so that in itself is a punishment so both punishments and the promise of rewards use fear to try to control them now fear triggers the stress hormones in the body through the fight or flight response now if you've ever watched the childhood stress

10:00 disorder or read the book Democratic parenting and the chapters on stress you'll understand what I'm talking about here um we need to understand the psychology be behind a child and how they get stressed and how the stress affects their behavior you see children are 100% dependent on adults for their very survival right they need us to be fed and to be housed and to be kept safe um you know for much longer than most species most species you know within a short amount of time they can be completely independent but for children the this uh dependent stage lasts much much longer and anything that threatens or undermines their sense of connection with the adult the parent or the caregiver will trigger their instinctive fight or flight drive for survival

10:46 because they feel that if the connection between themselves and their caregiving adult is broken then their very survival is threatened this is a deep instinctual Drive okay it's not a rational or logical thought process it's a deep drive that children have because of the natural dependence that they have as as the species so whenever children will feel stress whenever they experience feelings of disconnection criticism isolation or confusion all of these things create a type of Disconnect and will cause the stress response to start in the body now bribery encourages entitlement and the bribes escalate right and we all have experienced this we can start off with a small bribe but soon the child

11:32 wants something bigger or they want more or they're just not as interested in what you're offering them anymore because they know how easy it is to get what they want through the manipulation uh of you basically because you've kind of set them up to manipulate you through offering bribes and rewards so they play your game and then they start to up up the anty a little bit and the demands increase and soon you know parents can feel like they're hostages of their child child because they set up this this framework um to to of participation and relationship by introducing bribes um in the first place so common punishments we already went through some of these right we talked about revoking privileges like so there's main there's a main there's a few different

12:17 categories of punishments first we have like the reval of privileges that includes grounding no TV video games internet taking away toys you know whatever uh stopping activities less reading time um they have to go to bed early you know not they don't get to stay up late whatever it is those are types of uh punishments we also have isolation timeouts you know go to your bedroom that type of thing there's also threats right countdowns uh the yellow orange red card system right this someone talked about is just that's just building up giving them warnings and threatening them that something is going to is is going to happen a punishment is going to come if they don't make an adjustment in their behavior um then we have scolding right raising your voice yelling Bering humiliating

13:04 them all types of um punishment that fall into the category of scolding and of course we have physical abuse spanking pinching pulling you know or using the rod in extreme cases now let's talk about quickly about some of the common bribes that we see being used and we talked about those as well now we're going to just explore some of the different categories of bribes um that pretty much all the ones that um that you guys shared with me fall under these different categ ories we have material bribes like toys clothes you know things whatever whatever they want um you know we could just get them these things as a promise for something edible bribes right candies treats favorite foods um can be used in terms of under the edible bribes and then rewards right stickers privileges toys and then of course we

13:51 have emotional bribes and this is something that people don't always take into consideration but our affection time with us um recognition uh you know giving them acknowledgement encouragement just like um you know the star student in a classroom will get this type of emotional bribe and St status too right again a um a top student might get a special status in the classroom or the the the child and a family who behaves the best might get a special level of recognition status and affection that goes along with that where the more naughty or misbehaving child will be uh will not get these things and that is actually like I said a type of punishment where they don't don't receive this bribe okay so what's the alternative to punishments and

14:37 bribes let's go into this what is democratic discipline so Democratic discipline has nothing to do with politics okay people ask me all the time why is it called Democratic discipline has nothing to do with politics and it's not religious but it's based on trust and respect and communication it's based on connection and mostly on love love okay and it's based upon having the sense of being in this together as a family right or as a community as a group in a classroom and that breeds cooperation and participation in and of itself okay so just by having that sense of being in this together and deeply that's what children and most humans want more than anything is that uh that sense of belonging it's a deep need that all of

15:24 us have the the need to belong the need to feel connected and the need to participate with others because we're social beings so that's a deep-seated need so if we can create an environment where that need is being met and um and it's being nourished then children will naturally cooperate and participate um W with with little effort now I go through this in great detail in my book Democratic parenting which you can get on at Democratic parenting.com if you don't already have it or on amazon.com and the this whole book basically outlines um Democratic discipline and the different methods involved in it now like I said people ask me all the time is democratic parenting or Democratic discipline is a political do it mean that your kids get to vote no it's

16:10 called Democratic because it teaches children to be responsible with power choice and relationships they don't get to vote on when they go to bed or what toys they get or what types of Rewards or bribes they get because that just ends up being a type of bribery and negotiation and that type of thing okay it's really again about teaching them to be responsible with power right because we want to teach them responsibility because there comes a time when we're not there as parents to be with them and to help them know the right thing to do okay and that's what discipline is all about we want to inspire a self-discipline in our children right so they will grow up and to be responsible adults and they will make the right decisions and have good judgment around power around their choices and within

16:57 the relationships that they get engaged in and Democratic discipline uses communication a type of what we call connective communication kind limits natural consequences and three important rules now let's go into what I call the three rules of democratic discipline okay so um so wait Elsa was just got a quick question here and I'm just going to take a little break from the from this presentation if any of you have questions I'll stop just for a twom minute question break just to break up the presentation a little bit Elsa asks how do we teach responsibility well that's what you'll see as we go through um these three rules you'll see that how

17:42 the responsibility is basically taught through our own example because you see as parents be we have the uh the natural Authority right we have the natural power over our children and if we want children to be responsible with power and to be responsible with Choice then we have to demonstrate that through our own actions um and our reactions and our responses to them okay we have to demonstrate that level of responsibility where they look up to us and they see okay well my my mom or my dad of course they have power over me to some degree because they're my parents and they're the adults and I'm dependent upon them but I can see that they're being uh responsible with the power and they're making responsible choices and most

18:27 importantly they're being responsible and respectful in our relationship okay and that's a big part of it is that we want to teach this through relationship so that they will relate to us and they will relate to others in that same respectful and responsible way okay so what do we mean by natural consequences okay we'll go into that shortly there's a whole chapter in the book Democratic parenting on natural consequences so I can't go deeply into the whole thing but um it's basically the difference between natural consequences and Co cerve consequences is that coercive consequences is a type of punishment or use manipulations and threats natural consequences is we use that in a safe environment to allow them to experience the natural consequences of their

19:13 actions so if we weren't in if we weren't there to uh to change anything what would be the natural consequence of the situation now there's a time and place for natural consequences we can't use them all the time and uh that's why you know that's why there's an entire chapter my book written about it to explain the the right times to use it and then the times when it's not so appropriate okay how do you teach uh twins to respect each other okay that's a a bit of a bigger question we might be able maybe ask that to me again at the end Tammy I might be able to get to it okay what about children who are used to punishments threats Etc does changing to this type of parenting produce results um that was from Sheena definitely Sheena but it it takes time you can't expect an overnight shift because what

19:59 we're talking about here is a fundamental shift in the way you communicate and relate to your child and the general environment in which you you raise your children in um not just the physical environment but the emotional and intellectual environment and the tone and the pace that you have at home that will help them to uh feel respected and therefore give you back respect so this type of shift in parenting produces big and drastic results and uh you know I've had Parents tell me just within a few days of practicing these methods where previously they use threats and um treats and bribes and punishments created a a major shift just within days other parents depending upon the case by case and the situation it can take longer but it really depends on your

20:45 personal situation and your your environment and and what you have available um to you to make these changes okay so that's um there's another question from Anisha but let's just hold it there for questions we'll jump back into this prison presentation so if you can um save the these questions for the end I'll come back to them all right so let's talk about the three rules of democratic discipline the first rule is you got to know when to be firm and when to be flexible okay expression said if you're going to play the game boy you got to learn to play it right you got to know to hold no when to F no When to Walk

21:31 [Music] all right I love I love that song I love Kenny Rogers for especially that song and I I love that section because it's so true right we need to we need to find that balance so we know when to hold them when to be firm and when to fold them when to be flexible and uh and be a little bit more lenient so the rule number one is all about when to be firm and when to be flexible now this refers to several things we're talking about rules here okay rules in the house or in the school we have to be firm a lot of the times and we can't bend a lot of the rules but there are times and specific situations when it is appropriate and more beneficial to everyone and to the situation at hand to be flexible with

22:18 the rules okay we can't be too dogmatic we can't be too firm we want to be like a tree okay we want to be a tree firm and strong yet flexible so if the wind blows we don't break instead we Bend okay when the wind is very strong all right okay attention and um and uh Focus right we need to be sometimes firm with our attention and our focus and not get distracted by a child's Behavior or their demands okay um oh no let's see I just uh you guys just said that the audio didn't work oh wow that was anyways I I should have sung it out for you but it was Kenny Rogers singing no when the hold them and no when to fold them um but I'm not really that great a singer so I'll spare you that that

23:04 suffering right now by hearing me sing but it was just a little clip from Kenny Rogers no one to hold them no one to fold them and that is to to teach to help us remember uh that sometimes we need to be firm and sometimes flexible with uh like I said with our with rules and with our attention and our focus and um also with our priorities right sometimes we need to be firm with our priorities we need to get to school on time we can't be late and sometimes you know what it's it's more important to be with our child and to help them through some strong feelings or some strong emotions and to just skip school and Skip work okay if if the wellbeing of our child's entire emotional U makeup is going to be aided by us taking a a

23:50 mental health day away from school and work to spend time with them and to give them a lot of attention then I think that priority is and much greater right so sometimes we need to be firm and sometimes we need to be flexible with with our priorities as well and power and control that's the other thing we need to consider here is again sometimes we need to be firm right with power by holding that power and by just demonstrating them responsible ways to uh to use the power um that we have as a parent or as an adult with a child and also with the control but sometimes uh the most responsible thing is also to demonstrate flexibility with that power and control and to let them uh Take the Lead a little bit on that uh at the same

24:36 time you know keeping a very attentive eye on them to make sure that they're they're doing all right with that okay okay so you know it's all about balance at the end of the day I can't tell you um when the best uh time to to be flexible with rules are when the best time to be firm with rules or I can't tell you uh you know when to be firm or flexible or to shift your priori um that's for you to find out and it's all about balance so by using this these Democratic parenting and discipline methods that I'm going to be showing you um and exploring this new approach to parenting without punishments or bribes you're going to you're going to discover for yourself where that balance is and when is the right time to be firm and when is it the right time to be flexible

25:23 okay okay so um so SAA just asked me what do you do when your rules are broken well like I said you know that's for you to figure out because sometimes you have to be firm and that's the time when you use the technique I call Setting kind limits you have to set a kind limit but sometimes you have to be flexible and realize that it's not really about the rules and it's not about what they did but there's some deeper underlying need um underneath their behavior which is at play here and that is the biggest priority for us to address not the rules okay okay so the next rule is to respond situationally instead of reacting emotionally all right so what this means is that we want

26:10 to reflect on the needs of the situation okay we want to consider um you know all the needs of the situation all the people involved and and respond from that perspective and not react emotionally not react out of our own stress or the the child's uh Behavior that's triggering us okay so the first thing we want to do is reflect on the on the needs of the situation and really see what's what's the most again the the biggest priority okay it takes us back again to the rule number one because obviously all these rules work together at the same time and then also you have to ask yourself what you need to do in order to have more patience and less stress in your life you know I I hear from parents um you know a lot of time

26:56 they they talk about um the the issues they have and getting their child out of their home and to school on time and so that they're their their child isn't late for school and also for so that they're not late for work right now um you know and when when I probe a little bit uh more we we come up with the the deepest intention and the biggest priority that that parent has for their child is for their child to be happy um and then through deeper probing sometimes and more often than not I find out that the parent the adult themselves are miserable at work and they hate going to work every day so you know and and I have to kind of you know we kind of have to take a step back here and think of of how um how rational and logical and and really sane it is to to

27:44 get stressed and upset and get into arguments and fight and hurt your child's feelings um just to get them out the door so that so that they can go to school and so that you can be on on time for a job that you hate all in the name of having having your child happy it's not going to work that approach just simply won't work because if you want your child to be happy you have to be a model of that happiness right you have to be happy yourself if you want your child to behave properly and to know the right thing to do then you have to behave properly as well and know the right thing to do uh as well and to react less so so what we need to do though in order to get there we really just need to kind of take an inventory of of our life and and look at those

28:30 aspects of our life that are stressful uh perhaps unnecessary and that have a maybe a a higher cost than benefit okay now this can be activities that we do this can be relationships that we have Um this can be um you know priorities that we hold rules that we stand by um you know even principles and beliefs that we might be stuck to that maybe we inherited from our parents um unknowingly and then that and those those beliefs have been kind of like a a shadow over us that are just holding us back from really experiencing all the joy that life has to offer so rule number two okay we need to move away from emotional reactivity and we need to respond to the

29:17 situation and what's really necessary in that situation and the only way for us to react less emotionally is to make sure that we're getting enough me time we're taking care of ourselves and we're filling our own cup as as parents as adults and if we find that impossible if we find that you know we we have too many kids and we don't have enough time and not enough money to make that all work then we just need to we need to schedule at least enough time so we can sit down with a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil and write out what you're doing in your days and write out also possible resources that are might be available to you if you if you reached out a little bit more or if you made some adjustments in your schedule to make room for different relationships or different interactions so that you can

30:03 maybe call on some more resources to help you right so maybe there there might be people in your community friends family or Community Resources that can U offer maybe some babysitting time so you can take some time away from the kids and do whatever you need to do to refresh and rejuvenate yourself whether that's you know sports or time in nature or time with family or friends or whatever you need to do just to refresh and fill your own emotional cup so you can come back to your child when they do misbehave because they they do and they will and they will test us no matter what type of discipline we use whether it's Democratic or not children naturally um need to grow and expand so they will test uh pretty much any limit that you put there with them the only thing is is that the longer you use Democratic parenting and Democratic

30:48 discipline the the less they'll find the the need to test those limits because they they just trust you and when they do test those or when they do misbehave I become much easier to find a solution around that because they're much more available to actually communicate with and to figure out how you can make some adjustments and be a bit more flexible in what you're doing so that that so that you can create a relationship and environment where you're working together adult and child okay okay so let's go on to the next rule the third rule okay we want to respond to the root cause of the behavior okay now I talk about this again in the book Democratic parenting or if you've ever seen any of the other webinars this is kind of one of the foundations of democratic

31:33 parenting is to address the root cause of the behavior not just the behavior themselves and I talk about the roots and the fruits to to give a a metaphor or an example of how this works we talk about the fruits as being what we can see okay so that's the results that we have the symptoms the behaviors or the problems that we're experiencing and dealing with the roots those are the things that we can't see but those are the causes okay those are the causes the reasons the motivations behind what we're seeing so the fruits are kind of like the behaviors the Tantrums The Defiance the lying the um you know the the lack of cooperation the ignoring you know whatever the whining the nagging um those are all the behaviors and the symptoms the root causes is what we need to address and understand so a

32:21 democratic parent and we talk about the three root causes for Behavior the first one is the legitimate unmet needs and if you ever uh watched the webinar I did on the legitimate unmet needs you'll see that there's three categories of needs that we have you know the physical emotional and the mental and then there's 15 specific needs that children need to have met with in that as well but again I can't go into that in detail right now otherwise we'll be here for an extra couple of hours so but we just need to understand that children have some basic needs and um let's you know we all know our children well enough and and we're everyone on the this call is very smart so share with me some of the needs that that um that you feel children need if you can just want to type out in the Box here just take a

33:06 moment to um to uh to hear what some of you have to say around around what children need for them to be happy to be content um to be inspired to be stressfree to have clear thinking good judgment to behave well attention yeah that's right Amanda writes that love time with parents they need to be listened to say Teresa free time definitely yeah they need just free time unscheduled time is so is so wonderful and especially in in this day and age where everything's so busy and go go go it's just wonderful to have free unscheduled time where we can just lays around and reflect and process our busy life uh believe that they're loved

33:52 unconditionally yes definitely we need that um recognition love and time sleep definitely children need sleep unconditional love they need to be fed on time they need to get enough sleep rest love attention words of encouragement quality time food shelter yes attention they need to feel love safe trust that the adults around them feel they need to feel competent yes they need one-onone time respect nutrition rest transitional Direction yes they need direction guidance around transitions structure good sleep proper eating habits free time to themselves and quality time with parents excellent yes exactly those are a lot of the needs

34:39 all of those needs fall under this category so you know we need to when if a child's not getting um as having some needs unmet they're going to be driven to behave in ways where they can somehow get those needs met and that that that driver is a deep kind of instinctual thing that's beyond um beyond their their ability to reason out of their behavior a lot a lot of um discipline methods that that more modern parents and more um you know uh permissive parents use is a type of reasoning and explaining and talking with their children to try to explain to them uh the right way to behave and why the way they're behaving is the wrong way um you know and there to there is Merit to that in C certain circumstances but for the

35:24 most part if they're being driven by one the unmet needs or stress uh which is the next uh cause then they're going to be behaving in a way that they beyond their ability to control themselves okay so we we they won't be able to compose themselves no matter how much they want to because sincerely and genuinely children want to behave in ways where you're going to approve of so they're they're behaving in these difficult ways because they're being driven to by these deeper needs okay and then we so we have the next one the next reason why children misbehave is because of the role models or the or the models they have in their lives they're modeling the behavior around them and we all know that children are natural-born models that's how they learn how to walk that's

36:10 how they learn how to talk that's how they learn to relate that's how they learn how to do everything is that they see how humans around them uh do these things and they model that behavior now us as parents are their primary Role Models then we have siblings and then we go outside the home and you know people in our environment and our communities and even um the behaviors that children see on TV or in video games are types of U become role models for behavior that they might use as well so we need to look at this okay we need to look at whether when our child is behaving in difficult ways and we want to ask ourselves what is the root cause here do they have a deep need that is not being met or are they modeling behavior from elsewhere and then the third one is stress is my child stressed are they

36:58 feeling under pressure are they full of tension okay stress is a big one and I see that probably 80% of the time when parents come to me uh whether it's in these live webinars or whether it's um for the oneon-one personal coaching or in my clinic when I'm working with parents in their um with around their children's Behavior especially in the more uh challenging Behavior like aggression or violence or some of the ADHD or even some of the autistic type of behaviors or the the Defiance um you know that the Tantrums those types of things I'd say 80% of the time stress is the main cause of it so uh we talked about earlier how using punishments and bribes actually increases stress right

37:43 because it elicits fear that punishments are a form of control based on fear and rewards offering rewards for good behavior also elicit fear because a child has a fear of not getting the reward and whenever there's fear that is prolonged or intense in uh the child or even in an adult it causes the the fight or FL flight or fight response where the the adrenaline and hormones get released into the body and these hormones actually limit their ability to think clearly to to function um in uh in more responsive ways and become much more reactive in in their approach and and and um in their relationships okay and again I'm not going to go too deep into stress there's a whole chapter again on

38:29 Democratic parenting and how that we talk about the four causes of stress and the eight ways to heal from stress um and we go deeply into that but I'm not going to go too far into this in this webinar because again we wanna we want to go through this information quickly and I just want to give you a a good solid foundation of how to use Democratic H discipline with your own child and to move away from punishments and bribes okay so let's uh go a little bit more into some of of the democratic discipline methods okay some of the the techniques or what I call it's kind of like your toolbox okay when you when you start to use the Dem the methods that I talk about in Democratic parenting or in these webinar series um these all these different methods become like tool tools that you can put in your toolbox so when your child does misbehave right or you

39:16 find yourself wanting to use your your traditional approaches of uh Rewards or or punishments now you have new tools that you can call on okay so the first one is connective communication and again there's a whole chapter in this my book um but connective communication is simply just using communication your verbal communication in a way that enhances the sense of connection with your child okay when you scold or when you yell that increases the disconnect okay it increases the distance it has the opposite effect of connective communication and if a child's um you know uh sense of uh survival and well-being is so much dependent upon their sense of connection with their adult anything that breaks that connection just sends

40:03 them into this stress response and this survival Instinct and they they start to react more and then they listen a lot less okay so the the more you raise your voice and the more you yell the less your child will listen to you and if you don't believe me test it out for yourself or maybe you've already been seeing that in your family right that's why you have to escalate again punishments or escalate bribes in order to get the results out the same result after a while so connective communication is a great tool that you can use and in connective communication we use our tone of voice and the words the specific words that we choose to be more connective words and eye contact as well in our body language we want to use all these things together to really enhance that sense of connection um the

40:50 sense of compassion and for your child to really feel deep down in their gut that you love them unconditionally because we talked about you know everyone wrote down in terms of what children need they need that attention that sense of unconditional love right so you know we take away these these fundamental needs from them as a forms of punishment they're just going to start reacting any even more because uh they're unable to think clearly or to process clearly um the the what what you're talking about and the reason they're getting punished uh because they're they're they're reacting out of the the lack of this missing need but if we can meet all their these needs and enhance this kind of the foundation and the root cause of their behavior so that then then when they do misbehave or they do something that's out of line

41:35 then you can reason with them in a way that they will listen because their needs are being met therefore they can be more present because they're not as stressed okay so that's how that works so another method that we use is setting kind limits okay and this is uh what the main method we use especially if a child gets aggressive or violent or throws temper tantrums or that type of thing we we want to set limits um you know or if a child breaks a rule that we need to be firm on okay that's when we set limits so whenever we use the three rules of democratic discipline and the first one we we we need to know when to hold them and know when to fold them and at some point we say okay we need to hold it here we need to be firm uh at this point with our child then we want to set the

42:22 kind limits okay that's when we use these and kind limits they're they're firm okay yet they're caring and connected again we don't want to disconnect from our child because that will send them to into the stress response and make them less able to listen and to think clearly okay then another great method that we use are family meetings okay and this is a democratic style family meetings again there's another a whole chapter on this on the in the book Democratic parenting uh and we go through the the way you can set up these family meetings uh and different ways that you can use them and the purposes behind them and some of the need that are met by them but the the main focus of these types of meetings is really to increase that sense of connection because and what it does is enhance what I talked about at the beginning of this webinar that sense

43:08 that you're really playing uh this game together that you're in this together as a family and therefore the child feels nourished by their participation um in activities and by their cooperation with you they feel nourished by that therefore they want to do that and they they enjoy doing these things rather rather than resisting them and and being defiant okay and then natural consequences okay again that's a um when we allow the natural consequence for for something to happen so for example if a child goes to swimming lessons and um you know and after assuming lessons you you tell them okay you know hang up your your wet shorts or if they're old enough old enough you don't even have to tell them right and you want to kind of teach them to take that responsibility for themselves so you can even stop telling

43:54 them at a certain age um and they should you know remember to do to put away their stuff depending upon um you know the environment and the routines that you set up in your home so in this circumstance you know you kind of expect your child to do this and then they what they do is they just throw the the the wet wet their wet shorts or their wet swimsuit on the floor um in the bathroom or in the in the tub and um and you see it there and your your tendency is to kind of yell at your child or to pick it up or you know say something to them but to use natural consequences what you want to do instead is to say nothing and to do nothing and to just leave it there and so then two days later or whatever when you're it's time for your child to go swimming again you know and they're looking for their shorts they find these wet shorts that they have to put on and

44:42 they learn from that the natural consequences of not uh being responsible for their things or for their actions or to doing basically what's right okay so that's just an example of how you can use natural consequences with your child and it's a it's a fantastic fantastic way to teach them the um the true uh consequences of um of their decisions and their choices and their actions um but again you know there's a time and place to do to do and to use natural consequences as well okay so um again all these types of U these methods are listed in the book Democratic parenting and there's even more but these are the main uh discipline methods that we use in Democratic parenting to set that up so you can if you don't already have that book I highly you know I wrote it so that's why I recommend it but I wrote it because there's a strong need for it

45:29 because after years of um of working in parent learning club and and in child brain health you know just I get the same questions from parents again and again and a lot of them are coming from uh the a lack of information less less still out of circumstance and you know it wasn't because their their children um their children were um you know had less less opportunity than anyone else or that they had less opportunity than anyone else but um but because they didn't have this this information that that that I had discovered through my years of research into this type of of parenting style so I just wanted to put it together in an accessible format so that's why I put together this book so um so that's it for this webinar we're going to go into the question and answer

46:14 period now but I just want to let you know that coming soon next week actually we have another webinar specifically focused on dealing with anger violence and aggression in children so when children get aggressive or VI violent with with other children or with their siblings how can you respond in a more democratic way in a way that can help them get over this behavior and return to that that connection and that that care with others so that's next Thursday uh same time as well and um next month we're going to be doing another parent leadership certification program um where we actually go through a five week U um session where we uh we go through different modules and uh we dive deep into to the uh Dem Democratic style of parenting and um the iare system as well

47:02 so that's next February and you can learn more about that at uh the the link here you can see at parent learning club.com leers okay so if you have any questions feel free to ask them uh we have a bit of time now that uh that I can do my best to answer them as much as possible what is your opinion of starting of using start charts do you consider them a broad well that's a great question um so I think you mean like Star Charts reward charts sticker charts that type of thing yes I do think that is a type of bribe because again you promis them a type of recognition or sometimes prizes for Behavior but again it really depends upon the circumstance like I said with rewards there's there's a time and place

47:48 for them to where they can be really fun um and and uh they can be useful to encourage them to succeed and to uh uh and to expand and just again like I said for you know you can use them for fun but when you're using these types of charts for Behavior or for participation things which I personally feel should be a just a natural response um to relate and to interact with those around them I would not use these types of charts instead we can use this type of democratic parenting approach to set up the environment where they feel more inspired to participate and to cooperate without needing needing to these types of charts and that type of thing okay so um let's see here please elaborate on

48:36 kind limits appropriate for angry bossy defiant seven-year-old refusing to go to bed okay so um so okay we have a seven-year-old who's uh defiant angry and upset and they're refusing to go to bed how would you use a kind limit in that situation so uh basically we would just use our communication um and our tone of voice and our presence to let them know that now is the time to go to bed and that they really have no other choice in that circumstance um and uh but what we want to be careful of when setting this limit is again that we don't create that we don't want to react or get upset now they probably will okay um and that's what we talk I talk about that in the chapter of kind limits that it often

49:23 leads to an emotional meltdown or a tant it can go to and I also talk about how to handle those because those can be wonderful healing opportunities um when a child has a tantrum they're very healing as well so uh what we want to do is again just set that you know with our presence and our attention we create a a circumstance where there's just no no other nothing else for them to do than to go to bed that we're just going to be there with them and we're going to help them go to bed um but we're not but we're not going to you know play any their games of distraction or let them you know kind of dilly dally so much that we're just going to be with them and lovingly but yet firmly let them know that that's where um that that's

50:09 the next step is to go to bed okay so you know it's it's it's hard for me to kind of go too deep onto into exactly what to do in that situation because there's other circumstances involved in in any given scenario um but I would recommend you know to read that chapter on kind limit because it's quite a thick chapter and I give different examples in there as well um you know like um here Bruce just said you know a great point is that you never want to let your your tone change from anything but love okay and that's you know even though you can be firm and you can be serious you want your child to to feel that love coming through okay um coming coming through your communication as you set that kind limit okay

50:55 um let's see okay so one uh one person as asks uh what should I do when my son doesn't cooperate at diaper changeing time okay so that's Antonio asked that um how how old's your son I'm assuming he's pretty young there if uh If U needs his diaper changed and um you know so but but to talk about that there's a a we again we have to look again at the root cause of their behavior why are they not cooperating with diaper change do they have have an unmet need to do maybe they need a little bit more time with no diaper okay right after they they go pee or poo and you know that they're not going to do anything for a little bit maybe you can let them play around with without a diaper a little bit um you know or or maybe they just need to a

51:41 little bit more connection as well from you uh and you know a great way to to do that with a really young child is just you know some way elicit their a connection with them through talking or singing or playing a game or you know listening some natural Giggles from them um and then they'll be much more Cooperative in terms of um in terms of uh letting you change your diaper or whatnot okay um let's see how do you maintain a consistency when so much of the school system is based on rewards and Punishment uh that's a question from Sheena that's a great question Sheena um and that's you know that's a really unfortunate thing about our school system is that it is based on rewards

52:27 and punishments and there's there's not so much that we can do about that um more other than just take our child out of the public school system but it's not always optional for us to take our children out of school um or put them in a private school which has fewer punishments and rewards but um you know if that if that opportunity is open to you of putting them in a more of alternative type of education system like like the Waldorf system for example um where they're not so focused on um on tests and rewards and punishments but it's a a different way of educating children then you can always try that out um otherwise you know just always remember take heart knowing that uh your the home is the ultimate foundation for

53:13 your child and if they feel that they have your unconditional love and your unconditional encouragement and belief in them regardless of what happens outside the home then that will really help them develop a a strong um and more resilient character in life so I hope that answered that question let's see um so let's see Elsa asked do you recommend uh to use visual charts to help my child with getting to school on time um not sure what what you mean by a visual chart there Elsa but uh you know as long as this it doesn't uh threaten your child in any way or they don't feel like um you know coerced or bribed into something through this chart then you

54:00 know there uh we can use all types of things to kind of help them stay on track as well um let's see what about going to bed my children would be up all night if I didn't coax them into stay in bed okay Sally asked that question okay well there can be many reasons for that again we have to look at the root cause here we can't just look at the problem or the behavior you know we talked about the roots and the fruits earlier in the webinar and the fruit in this case is that the child doesn't want to go to bed okay that's the result that's what we're seeing that's the behavior but we have to look at the root cause behind that there could be many factors involved there um you know and I I have a again a chapter in my book called smart sleep which I talk about the the whole bedtime routine and how to set up a a routine

54:47 that kind of encourages them into sleep a little bit more and to makes that transition a little bit easier without needing to use punishments or bribes but again we can look at things we can look at you know their diet maybe they have some type of physical allergies with foods that are just kind of setting them off at night and making them more wired maybe they're not getting enough exercise as well during the day and you know this might not be the case for you Sally but I'm just giving some different examples for maybe other parents who have the same problem is that if the children aren't getting enough exercise and they're not feeling that physically tired then they might again be more wound up at bed as well or maybe they're having too much stimulation in the evening where they're watching TV or playing video games or too much screen time or maybe they're uh up leading up to bedtime there just too much of a busy schedule too much over emotional or

55:33 mental stimulation again causing them to be a bit more wired um but like I said there are some some wonderful kind of democratic style of uh routines that you can set up a leading up to bedtime that just kind of make that transition so much smoother uh and not have any types of coaxing or resistance necessary at that time okay so Don asks another question let's see how do I encourage communication with my child uh while the communicating well he gets distracted and forgets uh what he needs to do next okay too much talking talking gets him derailed okay great question Don I'm so I'm so happy you ask that because you know more often than not we talk and uh

56:20 use reason and use uh rationals and logic and and explain things to much for our children okay CH our children are incredibly intelligent and they're absorbing everything around them and they're learning incredibly fast Paces so we actually need to explain um you know H much less than we think we do and when it comes to types of uh communication around behavior um or around what needs to be done you know if our child's getting distracted uh they're you know they're getting forgetful about what to do next then we we need to take a look at our own communication how we're communicating with them what we're saying we need to look at our tone of voice we need to look at our body language and we also need to T kind of take a step back and

57:05 see how our child is responding to to what we're saying okay so maybe uh with your son maybe find a different times to talk with them you know take the find different opportunities where maybe you can do something together children especially boys uh they really kind of develop uh deep bonds and and um and community ating while doing something physical playing a game or going somewhere uh you know doing something with their hands you know can be a great way to create that connection and to really get through to them so um that's what I would recommend for you Don is to just try to maybe talk less around uh you know when it's unnecessary and leave things more open-ended for him to explore and when it is necessary to talk

57:51 you know again just be aware of your tone of voice and the circumstances and the timing of that uh you might find perhaps better times where he can be more attentive as well okay I hope that's helpful for you okay another question we have from Allison uh she asks if my child is out of control how do I give him space and time to calm down without calling it a timeout great question well what see the timeouts typically refer to isolating them okay so bring you take them away from whatever they're engaged in and you make them go alone and it creates it's an isolation technique which creates major disconnection and we talked about how disconnection increases stress okay so we don't want to do isolation but we

58:37 want to give them space and time typically the space and time that children who are getting out of control or hyperactive or wound up are looking for is not so much right at the time when they get wound up but it's even before then we have to look at the root cause again of the behavior what led up to this this out ofc control Behavior what led up to the freak out or the blow up okay and then we need to make adjustments for the future because sometimes you know what's done is done the the the milk has been spilt and we can't do anything now about other than just clean it up and to just be a bit more careful next time okay so we can create by creating more space and time in our weekly schedules so that maybe your child's schedule isn't so full that they have time just to lounge around and

59:22 to get bored for them to be bored for them to discover what um what the the um one author of a great parenting book called Simplicity parenting Kim John Payne that's a fantastic book he calls it the gift of boredom right because boredom is just that's out of that's from where the this deep creative um Instinct that we all have comes from is this boredom right so but nowadays it's like there's a deep fear of boredom um that we all have we try to over stimulate ourselves with you know little gadgets and screens and busy schedules and Communications and you know we're we're going from here to there all the time and we find ourselves having less and less time and feeling more and more stressed so giving your

1:00:09 child space and time to calm down to process their experiences to be more present to relax more and to just kind of uh allow them an opportunity to be bored and to discover their own in you know imagination and their own creativity to to entertain themselves without you know gadgets or excessive toys or um you know video games or televisions or these types of passive entertainment to do away with a passive entertainment and give them that space and time to uh to develop their own internal creativity is a great thing to do so you know again look at your your weekly schedule that you have with your child and maybe just look at the priorities around that you might find Opportunities where you can you can stop doing this and take out that and you

1:00:55 know and just start making more free time for them to to to um to experience more presentness in their life okay so thanks for that question Alison hope that answer was helpful now Elsa asks um she's nine years old typically developed her brother is 13 and is in this and in the Spectrum he needed a visual chart for many years to get him through the morning routine okay so that's is right you had the question about the visual chart okay I'm still not sure what this visual chart is referring to but like you know if it works like I said if it works and you don't feel like it it's causing them fear if it's working without eliciting fear or threatening them with fear of a punishment or a takeway or something or um and or the not getting a reward you know if they're

1:01:41 not promise of reward for Behavior or getting to school in a time you know then it seems harmless but again just you know double you know take you know question it just take a moment to question you know if there might not be an alternative if it is listening fear in order to to help them um get out the door in time okay paty asked the question the difficulty I have is school is based fully on the rewards and punishments okay so my son works on that model um a great deal yeah so that's true like I said paty um you know because the school system is based on punishments or rewards uh you know we have to provide a different environment within the home which again is a deeper Foundation anyways that they loved conditionally

1:02:27 and they can explore a more type of democratic style of discipline and you can just you let them know that that's how they do things in school but at home we do things differently and we do things as a team we're a family right so so that's why we're doing such and such um you know and I hope that um my my sincere hope is in the future the school system will shift and change and to and create a a a deeper sense of Democratic or heart-based discipline right because if if a teacher has the children 's Hearts okay um Gordon Newfield uh wrote a book called hold on to your kids and he talks about this concept in great detail he calls it you know having holding on to your your your kids and having them them having your heart right and

1:03:12 um and and then they will naturally want to cooperate it's the same thing that I talk around connection if there's that strong sense of connection then they they they feel like they have your heart and you have their heart and you're working as one you're you're part of a team okay so they'll want to they'll want to cooperate they'll want to develop and create things with you my hope is that the future school system that we can develop together will um will use that model more so than the punitive or fear-based type of model okay great so next question oretta when

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