Positive Discipline Tool Card: Focus on Solutions

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. Focus on Solutions 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!

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Teachers

Story -

5th grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson had gotten complaints from some students saying that the class was too noisy for them to do their work during the independent work time. She called the class together to discuss the issue. They followed the 5 steps involved in focusing on solutions. This is how it looked for them:

1. Identify a problem.

   1. Too noisy during the independent work time for some students

2. Brainstorm as many solutions as possible.

   1. Try out different noise levels to see which everyone can agree is respectful for all.

   2. Have a "noise monitor" job assigned each week to remind people when they're getting noisy. (based upon a pre-determined level.)

   3. Move people that tend to be noisier to an area of the classroom (back, front, etc.) where their voices won't be as distracting to others.

   4. Ask the people being louder what would help them to lower their voices.

3. Pick one that works for everyone.

   1. Ask the people being louder what would help them to lower their voices.

4. Try the solution for a week.

   1. The class did and found out those being louder weren't aware of it (it had become a habit) and they agreed to work on becoming aware of it before it became a problem.

5. In a week, evaluate. If it didn't work start over.

   1. After the first week, the problem wasn't solved. The class agreed to keep working with this solution since the problem had improved quite a bit. The class just needed more time.

Parents

Story -

Mario had become frustrated with his two children, Juan (10) and Maria (8) . The children fought constantly over who got to control the TV remote control. It was exhausting for Mario to play the judge in these situations and guess who was at fault, when the verbal fighting began.

He decided to do something different and use the Positive Discipline tool, Focus On Solutions.

1. Identify a problem.

   1. Juan and Maria fighting over the use of the TV remote control.

2. Brainstorm as many solutions as possible.

   1. Take turns being in charge of the remote.

   2. Set up a schedule, based on the children's TV screen time schedules

   3. Flip a coin each time.

   4. Have Dad decide (Mario refused to vote for this one)

3. Pick one that works for everyone.

   1. Flip a coin each time.

4. Try the solution for a week.

   1. Juan and Maria found this solution worked for them. Actually, they ended up watching less TV, especially when they lost the toss.

5. In a week, evaluate. If it didn't work start over.

   1. It worked.

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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.