Positive Discipline Teacher's Tool Cards by Jane Nelsen and Kelly Gfroerer and Positive Discipline Parenting Tool Cards by Jane Nelsen and Adrian Garsia, each offer 52 Positive Discipline tools that are available to help with many teaching and parenting challenges. Encouragement is the highlighted tool in this blog post.
After trying out this tool with the children in your life, please share a story of success, or struggle, you've had with it. Thank you! The more you apply the Positive Discipline teaching and parenting tools, the more they will become a part of your own lifestyle. Practice makes better!
Teachers
Story - Bob, a 5th grade teacher, noticed a group of three boys who were friends and hung out together at recess, often got themselves into trouble doing things they weren't supposed to. They were being "creative", just not in a pro-social way. Bob got the idea to use encouragement to help them channel their creativity in a more positive way. One day, he gathered the boys together and asked them for help. Bob said to them, "I trust you three to come up with an idea of something you can do at recess to entertain yourselves, that won't be against the school rules and will be respectful to yourself and others. I bet you can come up with at least three possibilities. I'll check in with you in three days."
The next day, Bob was surprised when the boys excitedly approached him already with a list of five things they could do. Upon further discussion, two were eliminated because they didn't meet the aforementioned criteria, however, the boys still had three possibilities. Bob asked them to pick one for the next recess and he'd check in with them the next day to see how things went. When the check-in occurred, the boys were pleased with themselves that they had come up with such a good idea and Bob felt like the boys had gained useful skills, and more confidence, because of the experience.
Parents
Story - Louise, mother of 9-year-old Kathy, felt frustrated because her daughter resisted trying new things. Louise wanted Kathy to join in on some activities, such as sports or after-school classes, but Kathy said she didn't want to.
Noticing a pattern of Kathy's was to avoid things not in her comfort zone (which meant most things new to her), Louise decided to try something different in order to get Kathy to stretch herself.
She asked Kathy to talk about what she thought was the coolest activity that someone could create. It had to be fun, not cost too much money, and not be too far away. Then, Louise matched up Kathy's activity to activities in the after-school brochure that had anything in common.
Louise asked Kathy if she'd like to invite a friend to join her. Louise and Kathy made an agreement about how long to "try" out this new activity and if it didn't work for Kathy, she could try another one on the list.
Where can you purchase these tool card decks? The card decks are available at www.positivediscipline.com (Select products, then select tool cards) and there are versions available for iPhone and Android in the App stores on the phones.