The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) recommends to parents to give up old negative discipline methods, like blaming and shaming children, and to apply rather a set of more positive principles, called "positive parenting". Acccording to this education method, that fosters a more loving and secure relationship between kids and their parents or guardians, kids' misbehavior should be corrected with more empathy and better communication instead of punishment.
"Negative comments, negativity or harshness towards children has been shown to be much more problematic developmentally for kids," said Jenny Jenkins, a clinical and development psychologist and the Atkinson Chair of Early Childhood Development and Education at the University of Toronto. Parents should pick their battles, ignoring the problematic things that many children aged from zero to six years generally do, and intervene only in cases of safety or really bad behavior.
The recommendation of the CPS also includes a section about time outs, a measure that should have no place with children under the age of three, who are not yet able to understand why a parent or caregiver is turning them away. "Often, this is the parent who needs a break," said Dr. Andrea Feller, a member of the CPS's early years task force that wrote the position statement.
Picture: Patience Serious, by Robert Henri (Cincinnati Art Museum, Wikimedia Commons, w/Effects)
