The subject of discipline  is a tricky one as there are many conflicting ideas from various child experts… sometimes it’s a matter of trial and error to discover what works for each individual child as every child is unique in their own way and no child is ever born into exactly the same family due to the dynamics of siblings.

However, there are a couple of general guidelines that apply to every child… One of these is to focus more on the positives… to give more rewards and praise and less punishment. In other words, if a child isn’t listening and doing as they are told, rather than saying “If you don’t listen to me you won’t be able to do ‘x’ or get ‘y’”… turn it into a positive instead by saying, “If you listen to me and do what I’m asking, you’ll be able to do ‘x’ or get ‘y’.”

And another guideline is to avoid punishing children through fear… Effective discipline requires setting boundaries, having logical consequences, being consistent with what you say and being clear about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Logical consequences are much more effective in the long term than punishment since punishing uses fear to motivate behaviour change. When we are motivated by fear the long term results are very damaging… we grow up feeling that we are not worthy or loveable and our lives become dominated by fear. Examples of punishment are hitting, yelling, scolding, locking children in an unpleasant or scary place and so on. The truth is; if you have logical consequences there is NEVER a reason to raise your voice.

The ultimate goal is to influence children rather than impose, so try to take on the role of a coach rather than a police. If you can find the balance between imposing/dictating and encouraging children by giving them some autonomy, then this will minimize the ‘Counter Will’ effect. Counter Will is a natural protective mechanism that children develop in order to achieve autonomy, so the more you work with kids rather than rigidly impose your own will, the less resistance you’ll get from them and reaching a compromise will be more easily achieved.

We should therefore aim to create a win/win scenario with children by using skills such as negotiation, team work and consultation where everyone contributes to making decisions about rules, routines and so on. (Note: These skills are for children who are older than 5 years.) However, it is not our role as parents to treat our children as friends but to rather teach children respect and logical consequences so that they can become self-regulating well adjusted adults. By disciplining our children we serve them… they become stronger, more resilient and able to cope with life’s challenges. In contrast, spoiling our children and over protecting them does not serve them… they develop an attitude of entitlement, seek instant pleasure and gratification, take on the victim role and struggle to fit in to society and make a success of their lives.

Four Key Factors to being a Good Parent

1. Partnership – Partnership involves working together as a team, creating win/win scenarios and developing mutually empowering relationships rather than having a dominant controlling system which is based on force, blame, shame, right and wrongs and harsh judgment. It takes into account the principle of the universe, which is that everything and everyone is connected. Since we aren’t separate, we need to treat our relationships accordingly and connect rather than disconnect.

2. Authenticity – Being authentic requires being true to oneself and being in alignment with ones inner most being. Unfortunately, society teaches us to express ourselves only if we have nice feelings, so if we don’t, we are encouraged to put on a happy face so we don’t make others feel bad. Most people avoid being honest about their emotions due to fear of what others will think and how they will be judged. However, what we need to show children is that all emotions are okay and emotional honesty is being real about what’s going on for you. It takes courage to do this and be authentic… this is authentic power and comes from within. It’s much easier to make ourselves look good and avoid being honest, which is pseudo power… an illusion of power where there are winners and losers.

3. Trust – The principle of trust requires us to trust our inner guidance or intuition, knowing that we are innately good. We become trustworthy when we are authentic and consistently align ourselves with our inner truth / guidance focusing on the good.

We can turn everything into a positive… for example, when we make mistakes we can show our children that we are okay with this by saying, “What I did is not in alignment with who I want to be and I know that I can be more unconditionally loving and I know I can do better.” So we are letting them know how we want to be with them, rather than focusing on negative behaviour that we feel bad about.

When we are like this, we send our children the message that they too are innately good.  So when someone behaves badly, it is not that they are bad, it’s just that they have lost their way, which is the positive aspect. There is NOT something wrong with them. Therefore it’s crucial that children are never given a negative label or referred to as hopeless, forgetful, lazy, irresponsible, naughty, bad, nasty, cruel, selfish, abnormal, and so on. The message we want to send to children is that their behaviour may not be okay or acceptable, but their character or nature is always perfect.

4. Heart – This principle requires us to come from love and compassion rather than judgment. Coming from a loving heart felt place changes the entire energy of a relationship. It creates a heart – mind connection, which leads to compassion rather than judgment.

In order to come from a loving place we must first release all resentment, anger, frustration and negative energy. It requires us to forgive and focus on the good. It requires compassion, understanding and gratitude for everyone and everything. When we no longer resist emotional pain, forgive, accept ‘what is’, see the gift in everything and actively participate in living from a loving place, we heal. The energy vibrations that we create when we do this are so powerful that it transforms all negative forms of energy around us and changes the entire scenario.

This is an extract from the ‘Parenting Guide’ I am currently writing and will have available in pdf in the new year.

A summary of an interview with Bob Proctar about helping children to succeed in life by realizing their greatness.

The great news is that children learn much better than adults, because they don’t have to change their minds about something they’ve believed for a long time. Children just have to make up their minds, so their environmental paradigm is not as ingrained as it is in adults.

The other great news is that children already have the greatness inside, all we have to do as adults is get out of the way and allow it to surface. Even if a child behaves really badly and appears to be a lost cause, it’s important not to judge them on their behaviour, but to rather see the good and know that beneath what we see they are perfect.

The foundation to uncovering your greatness is to know yourself. Unfortunately school doesn’t prepare us for the ‘real’ world because they don’t teach us about our unlimited potential, the power of the mind, the importance of understanding ourselves and going within for the answers. But rather, school and society teaches us to blame our circumstances because most adults don’t know of any other way.

Adults have to firstly study the mind and understand themselves before they can help children and teach them essential life skills. As adults, we need to pay attention to what children can do, not what they can’t do. And, we also need to pay attention to what we and others ‘can’ do, rather than what they have done, don’t do or can’t do.

Step One is to understand the mind and to explain it to children and teach them how it works. All you have to do to get their attention and interest is to find out what they want. This gives you information about what motivates them. For this process to be effective, you must be sincere because your energy has a powerful influence on how you’ll be received. We communicate non-verbally all the time and are therefore sending strong messages and signals without even saying a word. Once you have a child’s attention, it is through repetition that they learn, so by playing the same tapes or CD’s and/or reading the same books with powerful messages, you’ll program their mind or re-program it.

This is an entire shift in paradigms, but it is a powerful shift and paradigms influence and change our lives. So we need to question our beliefs… most of our conditioned beliefs are not just limiting, but are in fact false. The secret to understanding ourselves is to discover where our beliefs came from and then consciously choose what we wish to believe. When we re-evaluate who we are, our beliefs change and so too will our lives.

Step Two is to teach children the law of attraction or better called the law of vibration. Explain to them that everything is in a constant state of motion, nothing rests and energy interacts, so vibration dictates what we attract. When we change our thoughts, we change our vibration and therefore have power of what we attract. So ask children to stop thinking about why and how they can’t do something and get them to think about how they could do it.

Step Three is to teach children the power of acceptance… it is ‘what it is’, so accept it and then make a choice to change your response and approach to it.

Step Four is to ‘Harvest the Good’… look at the positive qualities in children and focus on these. It is essential to establish a good repoir with children… There are many ways to achieve this, for example, spend quality time with kids, ask them what they want and then show them how to get it.  You could start by talking to children about what they are interested in, what they would like to do, what inspires them and so on. So have the intention to leave everyone feeling better as a result of being in contact with them… make it about them, not you. This is how you connect and build repoir.

When dealing with children’s emotions it’s important to never allow your child’s feelings, like anger, to upset you… accept it for what it is. If we react, we act from habit and allow our child’s anger to control us, but if we respond, which requires us to stop and think about it, then we are able to control it… we control it by focusing on the good things our children are doing and by forgiving all the rest. Let children know that you get angry too, but tell them “I’ve found out it doesn’t serve me so it works for me to talk about why I’m angry, look at what I want and how I would rather feel.” You can’t change anybody, but you can influence them by being the example, so ‘Be the Change’ you want to see in your kids!

Step Five - Develop prosperity consciousness in children by firstly teaching them that their greatest power is in their ability to choose… to choose their thoughts and to choose who they want to be and the kind of life they want to live.  Teach children that we all have perception, will, imagination, reason, intuition and intellect, all of which we can use to serve us and create abundance in our lives.

Unfortunately, school doesn’t teach children how to create abundance and earn money because teachers don’t know and society has a ‘lack’ mind set. However, the truth is that there is no limit to supply because abundance is unlimited, so it’s important to teach children this. Children need to be taught that their mind set or their thoughts create their reality. We become what we think about, so it makes sense to choose our thoughts carefully and to help children cultivate positive thoughts. A great way to start this process is to encourage children to think about what they are grateful for because gratitude is the most powerful thought we can have to create abundance in our lives.

We are programmed to think that we have to work to become financially secure and successful, but in fact, working is the worst way to become wealthy… we go to work for satisfaction not to become wealthy. We need to teach children this and tell them the importance of creating multiple income streams. And children also need to know that they don’t have to finish school to make it in life. So when children get to year 10, don’t push them to continue, but rather ask them, “So what are you going to do now?” Let them choose. It’s time to teach children the truth about making money and eliminate the myth that we have to get a degree and then work hard if we want to be financially successful.

In order for children to manifest abundance they need to be encouraged to dream and imagine, so help children to identify their dreams. Ask them to think about what they want, to see themselves doing it or having it, to focus on how they can get what they want and encourage them to create a vision board. For teenagers, you could ask them to spend 15-20 minutes with you to tell you what they really want and let them know that you want to help them get it. Be kind and friendly to your children and focus on their ‘good’ qualities and share this with them. Let your children know that you just want what’s best for them and be authentic in this intention. All of these actions contribute to building a good repoir with your children, which leads to trust and enhances your ability to guide them.

Our most powerful influence however is based on our own actions, so to have the greatest impact on your children you need to also identify your own dreams. Spend 15-20 minutes twice a week totally relaxed, in a calm state and let your mind wonder. Think of ways you can exercise your imagination by taking the lid off and thinking about how you ‘can’ rather than how you ‘can’t’. Most of us only think about what we can do with the resources we have, which is silly, because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You could make it a family project to sit down and dream about what you all really want, encouraging everyone to dream up whatever they want. Then set individual and family goals, focusing on what you can do to achieve them. A powerful exercise is to get your children to write their own report card. So the take home message here is to dream and focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t.

Another strategy for creating prosperity consciousness in your family is to practice saying daily affirmations. Repetition is the best way to program the subconscious mind and to learn new ways of thinking and being. An example of a powerful affirmation for parents is… ‘I am so happy and grateful now that money comes to me in increasing quantities through multiple sources on a continuous basis’. This action takes you to a new vibrational frequency… a prosperity frequency. So all we have to do is to change what we say out loud and to ourselves and then tune into this new frequency to find the answers.

The victim attitude is common in our society and it doesn’t allow us to create abundance in our lives. Most of us are taught to blame our circumstances, our genetics and/or other people. It’s time to start taking responsibility for ourselves and begin to look for the circumstances we want and if we can’t find them, then make them. If you see you child behaving like a victim, the chances are they learned it from you. Treat your children with respect and they’ll show you respect. Remember, ‘Anger begets Anger’. Our children are our mirror, so if you don’t like what you see take a long hard look at the source of the reflection… ‘you’! Study yourself in depth and you will discover the answers. You have to believe that you can do it and believe that you can connect and influence your children.