The Impact of Positive Discipline and Kindness on your Child’s Development

In today’s world, juggling the demands of caregiving may feel like navigating a never-ending stream of tasks and responsibilities. This day-to-day busyness can occasionally lead to moments of stress, impacting how discipline is approached and applied within the family dynamic. Amidst the whirlwind of daily life, particularly life with young children, it's often crucial to recognize the transformative power of kindness. By incorporating kindness when guiding our little ones, we can build a strong foundation for positive caregiver-child relationships that endure beyond moments of stress or upset.

Positive discipline refers to an approach that prioritizes kindness, understanding, and positive reinforcement when addressing behavioral issues in children (1). Instead of focusing solely on punishment or strict enforcement of rules, it seeks to guide children's behavior through understanding and supportive interactions. Research has shown that use of positive discipline not only can cultivate a child's ability to follow directions, but also may enhance their capacity to understand and empathize with the feelings of others, leading to more prosocial behaviors (2).

As caregivers learn to empathize with their children and view behavior through a lens of development and individual needs, empathetic responses often can replace reactionary responses rooted in frustration or anger (3). This may, therefore, provide a nurturing environment that helps children to develop the social and emotional skills required for future prosocial behaviors (4,5).

It's important for caregivers to recognize there will be moments when emotions run high, and reactions may not align with the ideals of positive discipline. That’s okay! When these kinds of situations occur, it can be helpful to engage in "rupture and repair". “Rupture and repair” is all about taking time after conflicts between caregivers and children to acknowledge mistakes on the part of the caregiver and to demonstrate kindness toward the child, aiming to resolve any leftover negative feelings. This approach is primarily about understanding that conflicts or mistakes in the caregiver-child relationship are inevitable but are also often opportunities for growth in the caregiver, as well as strengthening of the caregiver-child bond (6).

Here are some practical ways to infuse kindness into your approach to discipline:

1. Engage in Active Listening: Active listening is an approach where the listener fully concentrates, understands, and responds to what is being said without necessarily providing solutions to their problems. Studies have found that active listening, particularly in contexts such as disciplining, can foster kindness in preschool and elementary school-aged children, by emotionally connecting with others through understanding and compassion (7). When your child is upset or acting out, take a moment to bring them aside and actively listen to their feelings without judgment or immediately jumping to discipline. Validate their emotions by saying, "I can see that you're feeling frustrated. Let's talk about what's bothering you."

2. Model the Kind Way: Reacting impulsively in disciplinary situations is common, but demonstrating appropriate responses to children is often more effective than immediate reactions. Research notes that children of caregivers who consistently model positive behaviors, such as using kind words in communication, tend to demonstrate better self-regulation and stronger prosocial skills (8). Thus, show your child kind and constructive behaviors through your own actions, such as saying “thank you” or helping your child clean up their room when they clearly do not want to. This can provide children with a tangible reference for handling frustrating situations in a more positive manner.

3. Have a Feelings-Focused Dialogue: When your child is upset, take them aside and have a one-on-one conversation about how they are feeling in that moment. Engaging in such conversations may enhance your child's understanding of how their actions impact both their own and others' emotions, which promotes more kind behavior towards others (9). Feel free to adjust the conversation based on their age. For example, help identify basic emotions like happiness and upset for younger children, or ask more open-ended questions to prompt reflection in older children.

4. Support Their Positive Efforts: Discipline extends beyond addressing negative behaviors in the moment; it also involves supporting positive behaviors when they occur. Research highlights that when children are praised for making an effort to show positive behaviors, they are more likely to repeat them in the future (10). Take note of when your child tries to demonstrate a positive behavior over a negative one, and be sure to acknowledge them in that moment by saying, “Well done! I'm really proud of how hard you worked to show kindness."

    

Research Represented:

1. Estiningsih, D., Laksana, S. D., Syam, A. R., Katni, & Ariyanto, A. (2023). Application of Positive Discipline in Children to Reduce Parenting Stress During Pandemic. In Proceedings of the 3rd Borobudur International Symposium on Humanities and Social Science 2021 (BIS-HSS 2021). Atlantis Press SARL.

2. Spinrad, T. L., Losoya, S. H., Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Cumberland, A., Guthrie, I. K., & Murphy, B. C. (1999). The Relations of Parental Affect and Encouragement to Children’s Moral Emotions and Behaviour. Journal of Moral Education, 28(3), 323–337.

3. Durrant, J. E., Plateau, D. P., Ateah, C., Stewart-Tufescu, A., Jones, A., Ly, G., Barker, L., Holden, G. W., Kearley, C., MacAulay, J., Peters, R. D., & Tapanya, S. (2014). Preventing Punitive Violence: Preliminary Data on the Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) Program. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 33(2), 109–125.

4. Pastorelli, C., Lansford, J. E., Luengo Kanacri, B. P., Malone, P. S., Di Giunta, L., Bacchini, D., Bombi, A. S., Zelli, A., Miranda, M. C., Bornstein, M. H., Tapanya, S., Uribe Tirado, L. M., Alampay, L. P., Al-Hassan, S. M., Chang, L., Deater-Deckard, K., Dodge, K. A., Oburu, P., Skinner, A. T., & Sorbring, E. (2016). Positive parenting and children’s prosocial behavior in eight countries. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(7), 824–834.

5. Johnson, M. T., Fratantoni, J. M., Tate, K., & Moran, A. S. (2022). Parenting With a Kind Mind: Exploring Kindness as a Potentiator for Enhanced Brain Health. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 805748–805748.

6. Skowron, E. A., Kozlowski, J. M., & Pincus, A. L. (2010). Differentiation, self–other representations, and rupture–repair processes: Predicting child maltreatment risk. Journal of counseling psychology, 57(3), 304.

7. Vitalaki, E., & Katsarou, E. (2021). Active listening: A model for Teachers and Parents to Actively Listen and Act Upon Children’s Concerns in Terms of their Perceptions of Quality of Life. Curriculum, 73.

8. Williams, K. E., & Berthelsen, D. (2017). The development of prosocial behaviour in early childhood: Contributions of early parenting and self-regulation. International Journal of Early Childhood, 49, 73-94.

9. Spinrad, T. L., & Gal, D. E. (2018). Fostering prosocial behavior and empathy in young children. Current Opinion in Psychology, 20, 40–44.

10. Hardy, J. K., & McLeod, R. H. (2020). Using Positive Reinforcement With Young Children. Beyond Behavior, 29(2), 95–107.