It’s All About Feelings: Respecting Emotions and Consensual Living

Welcome to day 2 of the Carnival!  Did you miss yesterday’s posts filled with practical advice?  Today’s posts all talk about the foundational concepts on which gentle discipline is built – those tools that go well beyond finding alternatives to punishment and focus on nurturing a human being.

Giveaway #2

But before we get to that I need to tell you about our second giveaway!  (Did you miss yesterday’s awesome giveaway of art by Katie Berggren?).  One of you will win a deck of cards.  Special gentle parenting cards!

The Positive Discipline Parenting Tools is a deck of 52 cards each with skills to improve you parenting skills.  The cards are detailed and offer examples with each tool.  The purpose of the different tools is to help you develop the “significant seven” skills and perceptions in your child.  Those are,

• PERCEPTIONS OF CAPABILITIES
  “I am capable of facing problems and challenges and gaining strength and wisdom through experience.”
• PERCEPTIONS OF SIGNIFICANCE
  “My life has meaning and purpose—who I am and what
  I have to offer is of value in the scheme of things.”
• PERCEPTIONS OF INFLUENCE
  “My actions and choices influence what happens.”
• INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS
  The tools to respond to feelings effectively—self-assessment, self-control and self-discipline.
• INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
  The tools to communicate, cooperate, negotiate, share, empathize, resolve conflicts, and listen effectively when dealing with people.
• SYSTEMIC SKILLS
  The tools of responsibility, adaptability, and flexibility necessary to deal with the environmental family, social, legal, and other systems in which we live.
• JUDGMENT SKILL
  The tools to set goals and/or make decisions, judgments, and choices based on moral and ethical principles, wisdom, and experience.

On the right you can see an example of one of the cards.  There are 52 so you could choose to take one per week to work on (as Pearl in Oyster is doing on her blog every week!) or carry them in your bag to read when you get down time.  I got them for my husband because I knew they would be more approachable than a whole book.

To enter, Join ParentingGently.com by registering here.

After you register you can earn additional entries the following ways:

• Follow Parenting Gently on Facebook.
• Follow Parenting Gently on Twitter.
• Post a question on ParentingGently.com
• Post an answer on ParentingGently.com

Rules: Each entrant can have 5 total entries. Entries are combined for a single drawing for all prizes. I will pick the winners through Random.org after the contest closes on 7/1/11 and send an email notification after the fourth of July. Use a valid email address in the registration form so I can contact you if you win.

On to the Carnival!

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First up is Dr. Laura Markham at Aha! Parenting talking about the Missing Link in Gentle Discipline: Emotion.  She offers 10 tools for dealing with emotions in your child.  For example,

• “Remember that little ones can’t differentiate between their emotions and their “selves.” Accept your child’s emotions, rather than denying or minimizing them, which gives kids the message that some feelings are shameful or unacceptable. Instead, teach that the full range of feelings is understandable and part of being human, even while actions must be limited. (“You feel so angry at your brother for pushing you! That hurt! We don’t hit, but let’s tell him in words that he isn’t to hurt you.”)”

I love that example because it validates the feeling in the child – something that is difficult to do when aggressive behavior is involved because it triggers such a strong reaction in you as the parent.  Letting the child know that the hitting was a no-no but not the emotion is so important because, as Dr. Markham goes on to say,

• “Anger is always a defense against deeper emotions, like fear, hurt, or sadness.  Acknowledge the anger, but then go under it to empathize with the deeper emotions.”

Not only is this an important piece of the gentle parenting puzzle but by modeling this empathy you can raise empathetic children – adults that can understand how others are feeling and respond with compassion.

Melissa at The New Mommy Files talks about A Respectful Approach to Discipline.  Her own experiences with discipline growing up have helped shape how she approaches discipline with her daughter.

• “My own experiences with growing into a somewhat disciplined adult have served to validate my personal views on discipline in parenting. It is my belief that the most important quality of any person who wishes to care for children is an attitude of respect, and I try to cultivate this attitude in myself and apply it in my role as a parent at all times. Because I respect my daughter and trust in her ability to learn from her own experiences, I don’t feel that punishment is necessary. Ditto moralizing, lecturing, and strict rule-setting.”

Instead Melissa sees her role as,

• “Respect[ing] her need tom ess up and giv[ing] her space to do so.  My job is to trust her to take valuable lessons away from her experiences.”

Our final post today is at the Natural Parents Network and it is on Consensual Living.  Consensual living is something I’ve just come to start learning about but, like me, if you are already practicing gentle parenting you’ll find yourself nodding “ah, yes” quite often.  Then again, there are many misconceptions about it!  Like this article from ParentDish that says “these parents almost always give in at the first sign of resistance. You might call a parent like this lazy, but maybe there is more to it than that. Perhaps they are proponents of a new parenting movement called consensual living.” Natural Parents Network defines consensual living with some examples,

• “Consensual living is about living peacefully with each other and working together to find solutions that satisfy everyone involved while still allowing for individual autonomy and dignity…Instead of going into a situation with an adversarial attitude, which can set you up for power struggles and arguments, you go in with the assumption that all parties want to find a solution that makes everyone happy. It is about parenting who your child is now, rather than who you want your child to be.”

The post also talks about child-centered vs. family-centered and offers resources for learning more about consensual living.

Welcome to the 2nd Annual Carnival of Gentle Discipline!

Please join us all week, June 27-July 1, 2011, as we explore alternatives to punitive discipline. We have collected a wonderful array of articles and essays about the negative effects of punitive discipline methods, like spanking, and a myriad of effective alternatives. Please visit our other writers each day of the Carnival. Click on the links below to see each day’s posts – new articles will be posted on the following theme days:

June 27 - Practical Tips for Getting Started with Gentle Discipline

June 28 – It’s All About Feelings: Respecting Emotions and Consensual Living

June 29 – A Fork in the Road: Turning Points in Gentle Discipline

June 30 – Gentle Discipline Recipe: Love, Patience, and Cooperation

July 1 – Gentle Discipline Resources