Other ways or methods to help discipline your child

This advice is purely for the people who want to change their current discipline methods or are willing to try out new ones.

When I decided to change I didn't know where to look, I was lucky though because at the time that I needed help and guidance two

TV programmes happened to be on TV that made all the difference to my way of doing things. 

The first programme was The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracey Hogg (you can also buy her books) she helped me most with dealing with my baby son, with regards to helping him sleep through the night and breast feeding etc.  I can't remember much about that era so if you want to check it out it would be better if you could get her book.

The second programme was the House of Tiny Tear aways by Tanya Byron (you can also buy her books) but she really helped me to understand toddlers from 1 year and up.  She made me understand that the way children behave has a lot to do with our own behaviour as adults and how we focus too much on telling our children off therefore focusing on the bad behaviour and not taking much notice of the good.  A lot of problems in parenting can also stem from our lack of understanding and communication with each other (partners, husband and wife) and that to achieve good parenting skills then both parents need to be singing from the same hymn book (sorry couldn't think of any other way to describe it.

So if you prefer the experts advice I hope the above helps but you can also find information on the internet as well. I shall just quickly list the methods that I used and basically state if they worked for me or not.

1.   Time Out - this is one of the classics and people have done this in various ways the way I found to be most effective was to put them in their bed or bedroom when they did something wrong and close the door with me standing outside with a timer as you are only supposed to keep them in there for 1 minute for every year of their life (eg if they are 2 years old then it's 2 minutes).  After the time is up you can open the door and explain to them in a calm manner why they were put in the room and if they have calmed down then you can take them out.  This generally works after a few time outs because it takes a while for it to sink in but once they know this is what happens when they do something naughty the tantrums and taking them to their bedroom becomes a lot easier.  For first timers you might find the tantrum lasts longer than the time stated you can still open the door and try to explain but if they are still not willing to listen then close the door and wait for the stated time rule.  At first you may find yourself doing this more than often but as you know it takes a while for children to fully understand what is happening, you're looking at possibly 2-3 day timescale for them to understand the system. 

2. Reward chart or star chart - this is another one that I know a lot of mothers are using more and more these days.  Because I was constantly focusing on my sons bad behaviour he had labelled himself as bad and so the bad behaviour didn't go away in fact it stayed.  For me the hardest thing was to turn this around so I started the reward chart and even though I gave him a gold star for the first good thing he did (it wasn't anything brilliant but I needed to start somewhere) he didn't understand what any of it meant and just said to me " but I'm not good I'm a naughty boy" so I carried on and it was difficult trying to find the good things because I wasn't used to it.   This carried on for a week and eventually he had managed to get his 10 gold stars, so I gave him his reward (a toy) and explained to him why he had got it.  After that he couldn't wait to earn his next 10 gold stars and he changed from a very negative little boy to a very positive one.   You can choose what reward you give your child, it could be a day out somewhere they like or whatever makes them happy.  

3.  Ignoring the tantrums -  this can be difficult especially if you are worried your child might injure or hurt themselves, so this is for the parents that don't think the tantrums as life threatening.  If you can walk away from the tantrum while the child is having one and ignore completely till the child has calmed down, as soon as the child has calmed down you can go over and explain things to your child, if however the tantrums starts up again walk away and ignore it, you may have to do this several times before the child realises you will not react to this kind of behaviour.    Believe it or not but ignoring my sons tantrums is what eventually worked for the nursery teachers they had tried time out but it had no effect, so have faith in ignoring it does work in the end.

If your child is being naughty in a public place there are ways in which to deal with this too, but I'm afraid you will have to refer to the experts on this one as I haven't had much experience in this area.  I always had my son in a trolley up until 3 years of age and I would keep him occupied by letting him read a magazine or a book obtained from the shop shelf or give him food whilst I shopped or engaged him in the shopping experience by letting him feel the fruit and veg and putting items in the trolley.

That is all I have so if anyone wants to add to my advice by offering any non smacking ideas of things that may have worked for you feel free.

Thanks for reading.