Positive Discipline

At some point, it became normal to think that, in order to teach a child to behave better, it is essential to first make them feel worse—to make them "pay" for what they have done. Positive discipline is based on the fundamental premise that this is simply not true and that, on the contrary, punishment often leads to very poor outcomes.

Reliance on punishment as the only way to achieve discipline stems from the difficulty adults have in questioning themselves and their own behaviours, and how these influence the actions of their children or pupils. Setting a good example is, in fact, one of the best teaching methods. Punishment might have worked in an era where submission was a generally accepted rule: when a mother was subordinate to the father and the family was governed by a rigid social and hierarchical scale. But is a return to that model truly desirable?

Compared to the past, children have lost many opportunities to develop their social and practical skills: they are rarely involved in household chores, are constantly overprotected, and are seldom encouraged to do what they could achieve independently. Consequently, they lack the sense of belonging and usefulness they would once have developed more naturally by feeling necessary to the household economy. In today’s world, the punitive method loses much of its meaning and effectiveness. On one hand, a child finds it hard to endure unmotivated submission and, on the other, tends to feel less loved because of the punishment received. In short: while punishment may have some short-term effectiveness, in the long run, it creates character issues such as resentment, a desire for revenge, rebellion, withdrawal, and resignation. By using positive discipline, there is no need to accept these consequences.