Positive Discipline Parenting Blog

Positive Discipline for Teenagers: Chapters 7-9 

Welcome back to our Positive Discipline for Teenagers series! If you’ve been following along, you know we’re working through the book Positive Discipline for Teenagers by Jane Nelsen and Lynn Lott, alongside the Joyful Courage podcast. This week we’re digging into Chapters 7, 8, and 9 — all about family meetings, special time, and the […]

Fostering Independence and Growth in Teens

Parenting teens can often feel like walking a tightrope—balancing between offering freedom and providing enough structure. With the whirlwind of emotional ups and downs, academic pressures, and growing independence, it can be tough to know when to step in and when to step back. But with the right strategies, you can navigate these years with […]

How to Be a Homework Helper Kids Actually Want Around

What is the best approach to helping kids with homework? I’d like to start this post by publicly apologizing for assigning entirely too much homework to my elementary students in the early 2010s. My intentions were good! I thought kids needed the extra practice, admin expected to see homework, and surely parents liked knowing what […]

Take Time for Training

One Positive Discipline tool that’s been especially meaningful in my work as a nanny is Take Time for Training.  In short, this is simply teaching children something, often a practical life skill, before we expect them to do it themselves.  Dr. Jane Nelsen breaks this down into four steps:  Makes sense to me! We simply […]

Feelings, the First Foreign Language I Learned as a Parent

How will we practice? How are we going to teach them to name their feelings, express themselves clearly and assertively, and not internalize or explode their stress or negative emotions? When our children are scared, mad, or so sad, their irrational brain has taken over and is only able to yell, “Fight! Run away! Freeze!” We can guide our children into their “rational” brain by helping them feel safe and understood, while teaching them to name and express their feelings in positive ways.