I was just reminded of something my co-teacher told me once in the way back when.
殺雞儆猴
Which pretty much means make an example out of one to keep everyone else in check.
[quote=“ImaniOU”]I also set up a quieting signal at the beginning of the class so that when I need the students’ attention, all I have to do is give the signal. It’s always non-verbal. This year, I used a thumbs-up. When we had our field day, I was able to quiet all of the students, the ones on my team (which included only two of my students) as well as the rest of the students, 40 kids total, just by doing a thumbs-up. At the beginning of the school year, we practiced the signal over and over until they got it down pat.
I also used sign language in my class after reading an article on teachers.net. I talked with my students about how when someone raises their hand, it is hard for me to tell what they want or what order to pick them in. I asked the kids, “How do you show you have the answer to a question?” They raised their hands. “How do you show you have a question?” They raised their hands. “How do you ask to go use the bathroom?” They raised their hands. “How do you show that you want to talk about your friend’s birthday party?” They raised their hands. Then I told them, “Now if we are in the middle of a lesson and one of you has your hand raised because you want to answer a question, one of you wants to tell me about a trip you’re going to take with your family, and one of you really has to go to the bathroom, how can I tell who to call on first?” They told me that I wouldn’t know who. So I asked them if they wanted to set up a secret code so I would know what they wanted. First I taught them the sign language alphabet really quickly, then went back to focus on a few letters - a, b, c, and q. A for answer, B for bathroom, C for comment or chat, and Q for question. After putting it into practice, the kids suggested an F for finished, E for emergency, and a W for water. They quickly learned the rule that E comes before everything, B and W is almost always a no in the middle of a lesson or if they are slacking in work, Q comes before A and F, and C comes after Q, A, and F. The manual alphabet is actually pretty easy to learn and there are lots of resources out there for teaching it to kids. I was going to do my thesis on using Exact Signed English for teaching ESL to hearing students, but anyways…
I also taught them Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song in sign language as well as some simple sentences like “What is your name?” “My name is ____” and fingerspelling, “Thank you very much”, and the one-handed “I love you”.[/quote]
I hate teaching. But when I read posts like this, I get excited because I love to learn. Keep 'em coming Imaniou.
One of the most important things you can do for your students is be in an area to welcome them and then, making full eye contact with them and smiling as they come, greet them by name enthusiastically. It made a big difference in my classes and I did it with all the students in my part of the school, even if they weren’t my own students, while the other teachers greeted them without using their names or didn’t greet them at all or worse, if they greeted them, it was with a sigh (‘Mrs. B.’ was really bad about doing this). I had tried to convince some of the other teachers of how it makes a difference in how students treat you (with respect) if you do this one simple act of acknowledging their presence with a smile, but being the way they were (especially ‘Mrs. B’), most just scoffed my idea. One day, after practicing this for a few months, one student came in and we said our usual cheery hello. As she walked into her own class, her teacher, ‘Mrs. B’ sighed a hello and the student ignored her. Not that it wasn’t already obvious that the students didn’t show respect for ‘Mrs. B’…
I mean, would you respect your teacher if she treated your presence at school as if it were a burden?
Anyways, although I did not state the expectation for greetings for the students, they quickly picked it up and returned it, using my name as well. With the younger students who are used to being able to treat people disrespectfully because their parents don’t expect them to do otherwise, I have stopped them and told them my reasons for saying hello (“When I say hello to you, it’s because I want to let you know I am happy to see you. It hurts my feelings when you ignore me. What can you do next time when I say hello to you?”) and they not only make it a point to greet me from then on, but also greet me every time they see me in the hallways with a smile. And it’s contagious to other kids. Perhaps it’s because of explaining the reason why that makes them happy to do it.
Role playing different ways of saying hello when a student enters the room(angrily, a la ‘Mrs. B’ and her sighing, with your back turned to them, not at all, and happily) will help them understand why it’s such a positive way to start class. And you’ll find the staff appreciative of how your students will more than likely start greeting them by name as well. Especially if you take the time to practice how to greet someone with respect. And that one simple act - of greeting someone by name with a smile - can easily boost the overall environment of your entire school.
Now, I stress using their names because when someone uses your name positively, it makes you feel good about yourself and it personalizes who you are talking to… not everyone at once or even a group of students, but particularly and especially to that one person. Conversely, it’s why it’s not such a great idea to use someone’s name to ridicule or scold them unless you intend to be disrespectful to them, which as a teacher should not be something that you do anyways… but that’s a whole 'nother post. 
I think the single most important thing we can do for our students is to believe in them. I know this is a cliche but it’s true.
I do want to learn more about various classroom discipline methods and theories, but I think they are not much use if the teacher doesn’t really believe that the students can meet expectations.
It is inevitable that there will be frustrating days sometimes in teaching, but to keep this basic faith in the students is very important. It isn’t a blind faith. It’s an acknowledgment that even some of the kids who find learning English most difficult can really achieve great things.
A student of mine was a typical low-achiever. I think that for him, English was much the same as French was to me in secondary school. He didn’t really believe in his heart of hearts that real people anywhere actually spoke this language, apart from as an academic exercise. His comprehension was weak, and he produced language slowly, inaccurately and with reluctance. He often tried to push the boundaries as regards discipline. But I persisted with him. I did my best with activities, stories, and my burgeoning feeling for comprehensible input in general.
At a certain point, after a couple of years of buxiban classes, he changed almost overnight. He became fluent! By this I mean that he was confident in producing language; confident in trying new combinations of words and structures to communicate his intended meaning. His communication wasn’t always successful, of course. Sometimes he produced fluent gibberish! But he had made a major breakthrough. And his confidence and willingness to try things out was motivating for the other students in the class. (His discipline was also much better.)
His writing was still very weak compared to the others in the class, however. I did what I could in class, within the limits of the course. And he received extra help from other staff at the school. But one day, they decided that enough was enough. He was moved to a lower level class, with a different teacher and without his old friends. His morale and motivation dropped straight away. And within a couple of months he had stopped studying with us.
I wish that I had pressed harder for him to remain in my class. I think we could have got his writing up to scratch given time. When he was moved out of my class, I think he felt that we had lost faith in him, and so his faith in himself (at least as regards English ability) went away.
He’s doing fine now though. His mum cuts my hair so I still see him from time to time. He’s at junior high now and he talks about school and reminisces with me in his fairly fluent – though not always accurate – English. He still says nice things about my class!
This may not seem directly connected to discipline but I think it is. If we have a basic faith in the students, they are more likely to meet expectations in discipline as well as academic/linguistic acheivement.
I make it a point to say something positive about my students in the areas in which they are the weakest.
Let me explain. If Joey cannot spell, I will not say “Joey can spell really well!” because that would be lying. But I might say, “Joey really connects sounds to letters when he writes” because even if he spells ‘author’ ‘othur’ knowing that /o^/ can be spelled ‘o’, /th/ can be spelled ‘th’ and /u^r/ can be spelled ‘ur’ is an important development in decoding and spelling. And it boosts his confidence so when he feels frustrated in using the correct graphemes, he knows that he already has the knowledge to make that connection because of someone pointing out his talents.
I had a few students recently who were pretty much harped on by their teachers and talked about with frustration as being “lazy”, “failures”, and “incompetent”. One was even going to be held back next year. But knowing how they had been labeled during the school year by their teachers, I made an extra effort to find the positive in their abilities and to compliment them on these strengths while helping them work on their weaknesses. I did not lower my expectations of them over the other students nor allow them to make excuses (some had been allowed to get away with doing that with their regular teachers). But when they did what they were supposed to, they heard all about it. Now, I only got to work with them for one month so I’m not sure how deep of an impact this might have had on them, but in that time, one of my “failures” did far more optional work than he was expected to and rushed to do as much extra work as possible. Yes, he still needed work in his abilities, but he was far more enthusiastic than his teacher insisted he was.
Another student who had previously tried to get out of doing an assignment by making a chain of excuses, did her best to make up the lacking work. When I let her do problem-solving for how she was going to complete her task, I made sure to compliment her for her good problem-solving skills and gave her my confidence that she would do her best in doing what she needed to in order to complete her assignment.
And the one I particularly enjoy is a boy who had been labeled ‘apathetic’, ‘lazy’, and ‘resentful’ by his former teacher is the star of several photographs with a big smile on his face. Number one, was making sure to greet him and the other students by name as they entered the room. From that he went from mumbling a hello to saying it with a smile within a week. Next was letting him know that even though he chose to try and get into trouble by playing around and disturbing others, that he was still expected to complete his work on time and that I looked forward to seeing his first assignment. It was done on time.
Twice a week, the students presented their writing to the other students (I was utterly surprised when I learned that this was their favorite activity unanimously). When it was this particular student’s turn, it was during the open house with parents present. The same one who refused to talk in his regular class and began my class mumbling and pouting to eventually participating and even initiating comments and questions during group meetings. The same one after reluctantly accepting his turn in a game, came up with the most creative answer of anyone. This same student read his writing aloud in a nice clear voice in front of his classmates and their parents. I couldn’t have been prouder of him (I made sure to let him know, though, just in case).
Oh, and the one who was recommended by his regular teacher to be held back a grade? My boss came in at the end of the month and remarked at how good his writing was. She was even more amazed when I told her that I had very little work to do when I sat with him to do a final revision and edit.
How you view students is a self-fulfulling prophecy. If you see them as failures, then they will fail. If you see them as helpless, you will constantly have to help them do everything. If you see them as being troublemakers, then you will spend time fixing the things they break and the people they hurt. But if you see your students as being capable, responsible, caring, and successful, you often won’t be disappointed.
Peace. 
[quote=“ImaniOU”]I had a few students recently who were pretty much harped on by their teachers and talked about with frustration as being “lazy”, “failures”, and “incompetent”. One was even going to be held back next year. But knowing how they had been labeled during the school year by their teachers, I made an extra effort to find the positive in their abilities and to compliment them on these strengths while helping them work on their weaknesses. I did not lower my expectations of them over the other students nor allow them to make excuses (some had been allowed to get away with doing that with their regular teachers). But when they did what they were supposed to, they heard all about it.[/quote]Right. That’s exactly what I mean. Keeping a positive view of the students, whilst maintaining high expectations.
For me, the bottom line as regards expectations is that they actually try. Though teachers can do a lot to make learning languages easier and more natural, students still won’t get very far if they don’t try. Try not only in the sense of production of language, but also by really involving themselves in the “learning experience” (that sounds rather Californian, doesn’t it?). I use class discussions a lot, and I expect that all students make real contributions, not only easy answers or things they think I want to hear. This might seem pedantic on my part but it is actually really important for language learning. When the language used in class has real, personal meaning for the students, they are far more likely to acquire it fully and retain it in the long term.
Aha. That’s where we get into using class meetings for classroom management.
Seriously, though, one of our problem-solving class meeting sessions helped shape policy at my former school for next year. I was a little doubtful of all the magic the books insisted came from class meetings, but after having just five of them last month with my students, I am a true believer in them.
I am thinking of putting together a Positive Discipline teaching support group/reading group where teachers can use the methods outlined in Positive Discipline and get support and ideas in a peer group. This would be open to everyone, but I will need some people who are interested in training to be facilitators for the group over the next two months or so as well. I also would like to know if there is much interest in this within the teaching community…
Is there anything on that site that isn’t just touting that woman’s books? I couldn’t find anything, but I’m interested – as a parent, of course, rather than as a teacher.
I didn’t see anything there, but I went to Amazon and . . .
I read from one reviewer that it’s OK (according to her) to let kids play during a timeout.
I would like to hear a few more of her unconventional methods as I like to try different forms of discipline on my kids.
(I mean that in the nicest way) 
Imani, can you give us a few more examples of her ideas on positive discipline that you like?
Of course I can. I have been using her practices in my classroom for almost five years now and honestly, the only time I have had to raise my voice to my students is when I am reading aloud dramatically. It’s a process of treating kids with respect, giving them opportunities to learn from their mistakes rather than punishing them, and helps them learn to be caring, responsible individuals. It creates a sense of community in the classroom where students help each other rather than fight or compete with each other. The parents I work with are skeptical when I tell them that I don’t have any reward system or punishment system in place until they come into the classroom and see what the environment is like and how the students work cooperatively with each other and are civil and polite in the classroom and when we go out.
Her methods most definitely apply to parenting which is where her work started and there are supplemental books that apply specifically to teaching, different family situations (single-parent, divorced, working parents), as well as to numerous age groups from infancy to teenagers.
Positive time-out is based on the idea that everyone need to take a time out when emotions are running high and PTO is not a punishment or even forced, but given to kids as an option when their emotions are out of control and they need to regroup. The idea is that when kids are put into traditional time-out “to think about what they did”, they usually think about how to get back at the person who hurt them, do things that will get negative attention or assert that the adult can’t make them behave (kick the wall, keep coming out, break things in the space where they are put), or feel really horrible. What rarely happens is the child comes out feeling sorry about their action (at best they feel sorry that they got punished) or even thinking about what they did, like you told them to. I like her quote, “Where did we get the idea that the only way to make someone do better is to make them feel bad?”
One thing that teachers (and parents) often do is when a child misbehaves, they tell the child what they did wrong. Ninety-eight percent of the time, at least for school-aged kids, they know exactly what they did wrong and telling them not only makes them defensive, but also gives them a chance to tune you out, talk back, or try to put the blame on someone else. In Positive Discipline, you make the child responsible for the behavior. You ask them questions instead of telling, “What happened here?” “What do you need to do?” “What rule is being broken?”. You ask them how they would like to resolve the problem. If they can’t think of their own idea, you ask them if they would like help solving the problem by enlisting a friend’s advice or if they’d like to think about it a little longer.
It lets children make decisions, based on the age and abilities…obviously you wouldn’t let a 3-year-old make decisions about her bedtime, but she can decide the order of her bedtime routine…it gives them chances to evaluate their decision, and it makes them responsible for the results of their decision.
If there is a stronger desire to start a parent group, I can point you in the direction of many books and resources and ideas (not just Jane Nelsen’s), but as the study group requires everyone to share their experiences and I am not a parent and certainly have no parenting experiences to share, I don’t know how helpful I would be. I guess it could work in the fact that we would have the same goals for the kids in our lives - to make them happy, productive, respectful, responsible people who can make good decisions and control impulsiveness. At this time, though, most of my materials for use in the classroom. We could start off with a reading group from the book Positive Discipline which applies to both situations.
I have gotten some of my positive discipline books through PageOne and Eslite in the parenting section and in the teaching section (which at PageOne has disappointingly shrunk from a real section to just two small shelves way above eye level) and I guess there’s always amazon.com. I feel really isolated in my school as my co-workers do not have any real interest in classroom management (or think “management” means they control the students) and my school only keeps telling me that it’s a good idea and then still continues to encourage teachers to use less-than-effective discipline practices. I hope that there are people out there who are tired of yelling and having kids who don’t seem to listen or behave.
It’s really amazing to see the turnaround and just how quickly it happens when you follow through with applying it.
At what age do you think a child is old enough to realize that they can do anything they want because you won’t discipline them.
At what age do you think a child can work out that all they have to do is to say sorry and think about it and so they can do anything they want.
At what age does a child work out getting away with not doing any homework because if you don’t do it it means you just have to think about it being wrong.
At what age does a child work out that if there was a test and they don’t study and get 0% that all you do is say “don’t worry next time” while the child who studies and gets 100% realizes that there is no point in trying because it doesn’t really matter. " Hey you got zero?" " I know I played Wii all weekend how about you? Next time?" Got to be positive !!!
Are you saying that you have no tests, no homework, no report books, no book marking, no red pens? Because if you do this is a form of discipline. Are you saying you never ask questions and give a positive reply to a correct answer. This is a form of reward.
Imani, thanks for the clear response. I think it’s fantastic that you’ve been able to make it all work. I do wonder if, in this system at a school, the parents end up doing the tough discipling if/when students come home with low marks.
I like this line of thinking a lot.
I’m trying to imagine how this will work out with my two girls (6 and 9 - no, those aren’t their names). Half the time the problem is that they are blaming each other for something. I’m wondering if you need to separate them soon after you start the questioning (What happened here? etc.). I can imagine that my kids wouldn’t be able to figure out what to do other than, “Punish her because it’s not MY fault.”
Any insight?
I like the move that you’re taking Imaniou, but (devil’s advocate here) how does this work in the real world scheme of things. I guess it’s perfect for the classroom, but I’m always thinking that isn’t school suppose to prep the kids for the real world? And while awesome teachers like yourself, create these modes of behaviour for their stds, it seems like the work gets tainted or diminished by the “real” teachers-parents who have a great deal of influence on the character of their child.
Back to the quote–is that how the real world sometimes operates?
Either way keep up the good work.
I’m sorry, but the term ‘positive discipline’ is just not on. Discipline is discipline, plain and simple. If one reads too much into the affair, one is getting ahead of the game. There are parameters, and there are parameters. All the rest is just plain common sense. This might not be readily apparent to civilians, but for those of us not really impressed by the skool of sociology, it’s quite patently obvious.
Sounds good in principle, but it also sounds like what my mother used to do with us kids, pretty much, a la ‘go to your room.’ Big deal, mum, that’s where my books and toys are.
Dad would give us a cuff and tell us to stop being idiots. His method worked well, while mum’s was much less effective.
Still interested in reading more about it, though. There could well be useful bits of information to back up plenty of good old-fashioned non-sociologist, non-PC common sense.
If by discipline you mean beat them, how well did spanking and lecturing work on you? For me, I just learned to get sneakier. What did you really learn? The more appropriate thing to do or to not do it again “or else”? My students get disciplined. Rather than getting to spend time playing with a game they were arguing over or one person getting it and the others suffering, they have to spend that time resolving the conflict and the end result is more fair because it’s something they have come with on their own. Also, I can spend more time with more relevant things than judging who is hogging up too many pieces of a game.
[quote=“bigal”]At what age do you think a child can work out that all they have to do is to say sorry and think about it and so they can do anything they want.[/quote] The problem with most discipline systems is they end at either the “go to your room”, being spanked, or being forced to say sorry, which is a personal peeve of mine. I’d rather someone not say sorry to me than to say it because it was coerced or because they feel it’s the means to an end rather than a start to reconciling. With positive discipline, there are three steps to recovering from a mistake/misbehavior - the three R’s. 1) Recognize that you made a mistake with responsibility (i.e. not by blaming others); 2) Reconcile by apologizing to the people you have hurt, upset, or offended. 3) Resolve the problem by working together with the person you hurt to come up with a solution that works for you both. If a child is not ready to apologize, you acknowledge that they are still holding anger or frustration and work through that so they can move on through the 3 R’s.
There are consequences for it. Instead of threatening, though, and exterting your power over them, you ask them what would be a fair consequence if it doesn’t happen and make sure you bother agree to it. For my students, we have agreed that if homework isn’t finished then break time gets moved to the time when the work would be checked and those who haven’t finished spend their break working on it since “breaks are what people take when they have been doing work”. Losing a chance to play with my board games and spend time with their friends is enough to make it less than frequent of a problem or else they take care of it in the time before class starts.
Another example is what happens when a student forgets a book at home or at school. The first week of school, I taught the students how to use the photocopier, to the point they probably know more functions of it than most of the adults in the school as well as words like “collate”, “reduction”, “enlargen”, and “double-sided”, because I wanted it to be clear that it was not the staff’s responsibility to take care of their mistake for them. Not just for photocoping book pages, but also because they like to make copies of some of my puzzle books and brain teasers (cryptographs were really popular in one class of 4th graders) and to use templates to make their own mazes and word puzzles. Anyways, they know that if they forget their books, they can take care of it before class as I always write what we will do for class on the board so they know what to expect and what books they will need. If they forget, then that means they stay to listen while I explain a concept, but have to leave to make their copies when we are going over some answers together, and since I usually do half the problems in class and assign the other half as homework, they have twice as much to do as the students who were more responsible. I don’t blame or lecture or shout or even give smasrmy comments like “I told you so.” All I have to do is say, “What do you need to do to solve this problem?”. They have learned to not say, “I can share with Joey.” because I make it clear that it’s not Joey’s responsibility to give them a book so it’s not fair to assume he will share. They suggest that they can “ask Joey if he can share his book” with them. Step one solved. If they don’t add the photocopying themselves, then I ask them what will happen when it’s time to write in the books. Again, school-aged children know routines (as long as you have actually given some to them and taken the time to train them) so telling them or lecturing them is absolutely pointless. Most of the time, they are either testing you, hoping that you will rescue them or to see if you will really follow through with your discipline plan. And if they play the “I don’t know” card, I ask them if they would like to ask the class for advice or think about it for a minute and give me their answer. It’s amazing how quickly they can remember.
[quote=“bigal”]At what age does a child work out that if there was a test and they don’t study and get 0% that all you do is say “don’t worry next time” while the child who studies and gets 100% realizes that there is no point in trying because it doesn’t really matter. " Hey you got zero?" " I know I played Wii all weekend how about you? Next time?" Got to be positive !!![/quote] You seem pretty hostile on this one. Why would doing your best be bad and not trying be good? What most parents and teachers do is give huge accolades to students and label them “Honor Roll Student” so that if they are less than “honor roll” they lose the identity given to them. And students who are labeled “weak” and “underachievers” live up to their label because it’s how the world sees them. The problem is not with achievement or whether it’s good or bad to overachieve or underachieve. The point is to give encouragement and not praise. Ask a child about a time they felt bad and most of them will talk about how their mother yelled at them for getting a poor score. Not how they felt bad because they didn’t do well, but because of how others reacted to it. That’s a sign of a problem to me.
If things go wrong, again, the three R’s come into play, this time - what happened? How do you think it happened? What are you going to do next time?
And when things go right, it’s not a matter of not acknowledging it; it’s a matter of acknowledging the right thing.
Praise for good scores: “Wow, you are so smart!” (so when their score is less than perfect, they are no longer smart?)
Encouragement for good scores: “Your hard work really paid off this time!” Praise is on the person. Encouragement is on the achievement.
Feed kids a steady stream of praise and they will become reliant on doing things to get approval from others, making them perfectly susceptible to peer pressure.
The problem with tests and the mentality behind them for most people is that they are a way to prove how smart or dumb a child is and who is the best student in the class, meaning that with there being only one place, there are 23 other losers, regardless of the actual abilities of those students. If you want proof, why do many schools only post the best looking papers instead of putting up everyone’s work? In my method of teaching, tests are assessments of how well students learned a concept and how much I need to reteach some areas. They get scores that show how successful they were at learning the concept and if they were unsuccessful, I give them some practice that takes a step back before moving up to where they should be. I also plan follow-up assignments, like making a comic strip to practice a grammar concept or writing a postcard to a friend about a science concept to give the students more practice and a more engaging way to practice and retain skills they have learned. I don’t use a red pen, especially in a culture where red ink is not exactly positive. I use pink, green, purple, orange, sky blue… I have a three check systerm as well where the first time an answer is incorrect, I make a dot, the second time it becomes a / and the third time it is an x and corrected. Anytime before that third time, it can become a check mark. The fact that it’s a challenge (and not a competition because it’s only dependent on them and not on one-upping others’ abilities), they work hard to get that check mark. As for giving correct answers or not, I always tell them to “prove it to me”. If it’s a verb tense, they can point out the reasons why they used that tense over others from the explanation in the book. If it’s a science or history fact, they can find that answer in the book. But as I tell them, I never take no, or yes, for an answer without proof. It also challenges them to think about their answer, to help them work on their scanning skills, and to make sure they aren’t just guessing. Any other questions about how I handle assessment of student learning? 
Again, you are thinking of discipline as meaning “making them pay for what they’ve done”. That kind of discipline is similar to the idea of compensating a family once for killing their family member in an automobile accident as opposed to maiming them and therefore having to compensate the family through their recovery. In other words, it only encourages not getting caught and does not teach that person to be more responsible. The word “discipline” comes from the Latin word disciplina meaning “to teach”.
Spanking, lecturing, and punishing does not teach people the right thing to do because it does not do anything to get them to the next step beyond feeling bad about what they did. Sure, some people do think about a more positive way to handle the situation the next time, but people also plot revenge fantasies, feel like they are worthless and unlovable, and learn how much attention people pay to them when they are bad. Positive discipline does teach through making the person think about what was wrong about what they did, to think of solutions to a problem they create, makes them follow through on those solutions, and think about what to do the next time to prevent it from happening again.
If you are interested in learning more about positive discipline in the classroom, I can make myself available to you offline, bigal.
[quote=“zender”]I’m trying to imagine how this will work out with my two girls (6 and 9 - no, those aren’t their names). Half the time the problem is that they are blaming each other for something. I’m wondering if you need to separate them soon after you start the questioning (What happened here? etc.). I can imagine that my kids wouldn’t be able to figure out what to do other than, “Punish her because it’s not MY fault.”
Any insight?[/quote]
The best thing to do is walk away. I know my sister and I fought like cats and dogs, knowing that we would rush to tell my mom our side of the story to get her to side with one of us (if we didn’t call her at work before then) and therefore assert that we were the better sister. The best thing to do, though, is to walk away. Tell the girls that you are sure they can solve their problem and you will be happy to hear what they have decided. My sister and I lost interest in our fight once we knew my mother would not take sides and had no interest in our argument. Put them both in the same boat and let them know that you are not interested in who started what and whose fault it is. You are only interested in how they are going to solve their problem and that you will be ready to listen when that happens.
It takes a lot of work the first time to ignore the screaming and yelling, but when they see you are not going to play judge, jury, and executioner, they realize that they have to work out it out themselves. My younger students, 6- and 7-year-olds will come screaming to me about “so-and-so did this when I said…”. I simply tell them that it sounds like they have a problem with so-and-so so that person would a better person to talk to about this problem. And that I look forward to hearing how they solved the problem together. And I mean it. If someone speaks Chinese during class in my English-immersion classroom, instead of coming and telling me (like what happens in most of the classrooms around my school), they simply remind the offending student to “please speak English” or that the classroom is “English only” in a calm, respectful tone as I model for them.
[quote=“Namahottie”]I like the move that you’re taking Imaniou, but (devil’s advocate here) how does this work in the real world scheme of things. I guess it’s perfect for the classroom, but I’m always thinking that isn’t school suppose to prep the kids for the real world? And while awesome teachers like yourself, create these modes of behaviour for their stds, it seems like the work gets tainted or diminished by the “real” teachers-parents who have a great deal of influence on the character of their child.
Back to the quote–is that how the real world sometimes operates? [/quote]
Wouldn’t be nice if people took responsibility for their problems and tried to fix them instead of blaming others or working hard on not getting caught? I have seen what happens to kids who follow positive discipline as several members of my family have used this with their kids. I remember when my Aunt Sandy said that she was going to use this method to raise her children and the rest of my family scoffed and said she’d change her mind as soon as she actually had kids. And although the rest of us kids turned out okay (except the number of cousins who dropped out of school, had substance abuse problems, got pregnant in their teens, or have been in prison or in therapy) her kids have turned out to be leaders in their schools, earn high grades, are very active in the community, and are fun to be around with despite the huge age gap (the oldest of her kids is 16 and the youngest is 9). They are very polite and respectful without being coerced to be so (unlike my 6-year-old niece who says “pleasethankyou” after every request for fear of a look from Dad who was trained to do the same with “ma’am” and “sir” as a kid) but are more than happy to contradict you if they think you are wrong (and apologize if it turns out you weren’t). They are less susceptible to bullying and peer pressure because they know that the only opinion of themselves that matters is theirs (thanks to not being overladen with praise and conditional love - “You got good grades? That’s my boy!”). I don’t have to yell or cajole or bribe or trick my students to behave and I can spend my time teaching rather than dealing with behavior issues. Although they are not perfect, as no one is especially people who are still feeling their way in the world, they are more responsible, respectful, and caring than kids who have the former done to them by their teachers.
The name comes from the fact that to most people, as demonstrated on this thread, discipline is synonymous with punishment. The only way to pull them out of this mindset is to slap on the word “positive” to remind them that that’s what it’s supposed to be. If it’s simply a matter of a name that bothers you, then what would you call it? If it were common sense, then how come very few people seem to know about the practices and are so skeptical about it? Many people come from an idea of “Spare the rod, spoil the child” and yet I have seen time and time again cases where using the rod created a poisoned child. And cases where sparing the rod and using something more respectful not only avoided spoiling the child but made them the kind of person parents dream of their children becoming.
[quote=“sandman”]Sounds good in principle, but it also sounds like what my mother used to do with us kids, pretty much, a la ‘go to your room.’ Big deal, mum, that’s where my books and toys are.
Dad would give us a cuff and tell us to stop being idiots. His method worked well, while mum’s was much less effective.
Still interested in reading more about it, though. There could well be useful bits of information to back up plenty of good old-fashioned non-sociologist, non-PC common sense.[/quote]
The difference between what your mom did and what positive time-out is, is that you come out when you are ready to reconcile and resolve the problem. If that takes all day, you are still responsible for those other parts. Parents can also put themselves into positive time-out when you are feeling to angry or frustrated or hurt to deal with your child at the time. And it’s given as an option - “Would you like to apologize and help fix this now or go to Australia (the name of my PTO space from the story Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) for a little while until you are?” rather than a threat or punishment. As for the cuff on the ear, there’s no doubt that it got you to stop fighting, but how logical is it to tell a kid to stop hitting someone by hitting them? 
Never flew with me either.
Ever see “A River Runs Though It”? The part where the 6-year-old Brad Pitt character refuses to eat his porridge so he has to sit at the table until he’s ready to eat?
(He won. And his non-violent positive reinforcement dad was a HARD godfearing presbyterian. Sorry if that’s a spoiler – its a damn fine film.)
Even at age six I was WAY more patient than my mum, god bless her. But its my dad who instilled right, wrong, manners and compassion into me. PC-ness and sociological twaddle held very very short shrift for a country doctor in 60s Britain, yet he managed to raise a reasonably decent bunch of offspring without raising his hand in anger to any of my sisters, ever, and only twice to me – once for pilfering change out of his trouser pocket despite repeated “positive reinforcement” attempts to stop me, and once when I pulled a blade on him (a moment of LSD-inspired insanity).
My gut tells me to go for Gingerman’s common sense, but I’d still like to find out more about this positive discipline thing, because, like my dad, I won’t rule out ANY possibilities.
[quote=“ImaniOU”] . . .
Praise for good scores: “Wow, you are so smart!” (so when their score is less than perfect, they are no longer smart?)
Encouragement for good scores: “Your hard work really paid off this time!” Praise is on the person. Encouragement is on the achievement.
Feed kids a steady stream of praise and they will become reliant on doing things to get approval from others, making them perfectly susceptible to peer pressure. . .
[/quote]
BEST ADVICE EVER! :bravo:
I like to “praise the effort” as well. Vay pointed out an interesting study on “praising the effort vs. praising the result” long ago. I’m convinced.
[quote=“ImaniOU”] . . .
[quote=“zender”]I’m trying to imagine how this will work out with my two girls (6 and 9 - no, those aren’t their names). Half the time the problem is that they are blaming each other for something. I’m wondering if you need to separate them soon after you start the questioning (What happened here? etc.). I can imagine that my kids wouldn’t be able to figure out what to do other than, “Punish her because it’s not MY fault.”
Any insight?[/quote]
The best thing to do is walk away. I know my sister and I fought like cats and dogs, knowing that we would rush to tell my mom our side of the story to get her to side with one of us (if we didn’t call her at work before then) and therefore assert that we were the better sister. The best thing to do, though, is to walk away. Tell the girls that you are sure they can solve their problem and you will be happy to hear what they have decided. My sister and I lost interest in our fight once we knew my mother would not take sides and had no interest in our argument. Put them both in the same boat and let them know that you are not interested in who started what and whose fault it is. You are only interested in how they are going to solve their problem and that you will be ready to listen when that happens. . . .
[/quote]
I do walk away or try to let my kids work out their disputes from time to time. However, the difference between 9 and 6 is huge, and I feel it’s my duty at times (OK, I’ll admit, I was the youngest child in MY family) to make sure that the elder isn’t taking advantage of the younger.
One thing that has worked well for me is timing. If the kids are fighting over something, I have a little timer that gets set. “OK. you get it for 15 minutes, and then, she gets it for 30; after that, you get it for an hour . . .”
This can be quite comical with toys.
Me: “OK, you get it for 2 seconds. . . Now it’s hers for 4.”
Hey! How come?! 
Me: “Now it’s yours for 8”
They don’t have enough time to really play with a toy, and they soon lose all interest in just holding it.
I think this can also teach them to sort out their own problems rather than taking them to Dad.
I’ve also been know to say things like, “It seems like you kids are having problems deciding on a TV channel. Maybe Dad can help you figure this one out . . . I think Larry King might be on . . .”
Ever see “A River Runs Though It”? The part where the 6-year-old Brad Pitt character refuses to eat his porridge so he has to sit at the table until he’s ready to eat?
(He won. And his non-violent positive reinforcement dad was a HARD godfearing presbyterian. Sorry if that’s a spoiler – its a damn fine film.)[/quote]
Power struggles always equal winners and losers. Ignoring the behavior and letting natural consequences work doesn’t.
PD version of that scene…
Kid sits at the table refuses to eat the porridge. Parent lets him know that the meal will be over at 8:30 and at that time, any untouched food will be thrown out. The next meal will be at noon and he is welcome to try again at that time. Then the parent ignores him, and does what he says. Whining about hunger? “Thank you for letting me know. Lunch will be served at noon and you can eat then.”
Of course, in a real PD situation, the child would have been involved in the meal, helping to plan it, given choices about what to make, and helping to prepare it so they would be more invested in wanting to eat. Why do people feel they have to have absolute power over kids to make them be better people and then expect that they know how to make good decisions when you think they are old enough to make them without having any practice beforehand?
Yeah, I turned out okay like most everyone here but I wonder how much better I would have been if I didn’t spend my entire childhood resenting my sister and having my sister always trying to outdo me because we were always pitted against each other for love and acceptance with our family members through punishments, rewards, and labels - one particular one that stuck was that she was the sweet one and I was the smart one and God forbid we be less than that - and how much better of a relationship I might have with my mother if I didn’t remember times where we went through power struggles and revenge cycles (we are both “power” people). I recommend this article for you Sandman.
It’s good to see you are open-minded and even if you don’t whole-heartedly take up the practices, a little “common” sense never hurt anyone. Of course what is common sense to some may not be to others until they have actually heard of it and realize how common sense it is…