Think about the last time your child did something you felt required some sort of “disciplining.” What did you do? Did you give a time out? Did you talk it through, discussing what happened and what your child could do differently next time? Did you give a swat on the hand, or on the bottom? Employ a ‘natural consequence’? Now imagine that you are the parent of a challenging child and that these instances happen many, many times each day. How much energy and attention do you suppose you’d be giving to negative behaviors?

I always thought that I would be a natural consequences and discussion type of parent. Ellie doesn’t want to wear her jacket? She’ll be cold. Ellie doesn’t want to put her bike in the garage when she’s done playing with it? It might get backed over by a tractor. Depending on what her behavior is, we might also do some role playing or talk about ways to handle it: “I saw how frustrated you were when Tommy took the toy you were playing with! What do you think you could do next time instead of hitting?”

With Ellie, these methods seemed to backfire. Natural consequences? They were almost so novel to her that she would deliberately do things to see what would happen next. Talking? Holy cow did that ever just piss her off royally and add fuel to the fire. The more we would talk and try to calm her down by being understanding and empathetic, the more angry and hysterical she would become. It certainly didn’t seem to encourage her to employ any of the strategies we were so carefully trying to instill. We switched to time outs. She discovered really quick that there was nothing to keep her in the chair, and we decided that any method that relied on physical power-plays was dangerous; it would only work as long as she was physically small enough for us to dominate her, and it showed that the bigger person won simply by virtue of having larger muscles. We thought that was the wrong message to send. We moved to 123 Magic. Same result.

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If this had been a real time out, someone would have been crying. Me.

We had no idea of what to do to have effective discipline for Ellie. We were feeling seriously out of control and simply at a loss. I ran across the Nurtured Heart Approach by random chance. I did a search on Amazon for books on discipline because I had exhausted all the options I was familiar with. The book Transforming the Difficult Child seemed to have many positive reviews from parents who wrote things like, “this is the only thing that has worked for us.” Or, “this has completely changed my child.”

I requested it from our library. After reading just the first few chapters, I felt a light coming on in my head. No wonder what we had done in the past wasn’t working for us! We had it all backwards. I quickly ordered a copy of our own, as well as a workbook. The rest, as they say, is history.

The basic tenets are these:

Stand 1: Absolutely YES: Relentlessly energizing the positive

* Using recognitions to create success that would not otherwise exist.
* Super-energize in the moment to change the child’s impression about what gets our attention.
* Making the ordinary moments extraordinary moments in the eyes of the child.

Stand 2: Absolutely CLEAR: Establish and maintain absolute clarity around rules and give un-energized consequences when a rule is broken.
* Refuse to actively energize negativity by not giving lectures, reprimands, threats and ultimatums.
* Refuse to passively energize negativity with reminders, chances and “pep talks.”
* Become clear about not giving energy in the context of negative behavior.

Stand 3: Absolutely NO: Refusing to give energy and relationship to negative behavior.

* Use rules that begin with ‘No.”
* Become clear about expectations by way of noticing when they ARE being demonstrated.
* Discussion about the rules occurs at the most optimal time—when the student is following them.

The “three stands” adaptation taken from: District 287 Nurtured Heart

It became clear to us after some reflection that Ellie was getting the most attention, the most energy, and the most connection from Mr. T and me when she was engaging in inappropriate behaviors. When she was doing the right thing, she would rarely get wonderful descriptive recognition given with that same level of energy. Most often she would get a vague, “good job,” or “thanks.” And even more unfortunate were all the wasted opportunities that happened whenever she was doing something powerful or noteworthy and we said absolutely nothing at all.

Now that we have been consistently using the Nurtured Heart approach for over a year, things are so much better. I love watching her glow and absolutely light up from inside out when we say things to her like, “I love the way you showed such consideration to Lorelei when you shared your toy without being asked. I noticed that it was a toy you really love. That clearly took a lot of self-control and care.” These sorts of clear recognition give her opportunities to see greatness in herself. And the best part? It’s not at all manufactured. We aren’t making things up. We aren’t artificially inflating her sense of self. We are calling a spade a spade, but we’re doing it at times when it can have the greatest impact for her. By calling attention to qualities that she is showing that we’d love to see even more often (things like consideration, self-control, care, respect) she is learning to see herself as a person who possesses these qualities and learning to identify what these qualities look like in action.

We have also found ways to extend the approach to school. At the end of the day at home, we have a family meeting where we are all able to review how the day went. Ellie is asked how she did (ranging from excellent to poor) in different categories that can change over time to reflect what we need to work on. Right now they are:

  • No hitting, kicking, pushing or hurting
  • No disobeying
  • No whining or complaining
  • No lying
  • No damaging property
  • No rudeness

We make sure that some of the categories are “gimmes” so that she can always experience some level of success. She has a similar report from school with categories like:

  • No aggression
  • No ignoring the teacher’s directions
  • No bad attitude
  • No off-task behavior

There is also a space for teacher comments. During the family meeting Ellie is awarded ‘points’ which are represented by poker chips of different colors (tens are white, hundreds are red, five hundreds are blue) that can be spent on privileges such as a horseback riding lesson, a family movie, a sleep-over with mom or dad, extra reading time at night, a trip to the zoo, etc.

It also works super well on spouses! Planting season found Mr. T and me snippy with one another way more often than is normal for us. Mr. T jokingly said, “We should use Nurtured Heart on each other!” We actually did, and it made all the difference in the world. Instead of spending all our energy telling one another about all the things we thought the other person was doing wrong, we focused the energy on noticing things we appreciated and wanted to see more of. Within days it seemed like we had hit on some honeymoon-ish sort of groove. We were looking for ways to make the other person smile. We were giving regular compliments (and meaning them!). We were feeling so much more love and positivity towards one another.


It’s even starting to work on this little wild-woman!

I won’t pretend that this has turned our difficult child into a model of perfection. But I will say that we have far more reasons these days to celebrate all of her wonderful qualities. Lots of times, the positivity of recognizing all the wonderful things she is doing turns into a flurry of activity on her part to show even more recognition-worthy behavior. We might notice how well she is playing with Lorelei, only to have her turn around and gift her sister a coveted toy, and then come and give me a spontaneous hug and tell me what a great mom I am. It feels so good to have finally found a tool that works for our family and that has resulted in such positive changes.

Toddler Tantrums part 11 of 12

1. How to prevent tantrums: A guide to the 5 triggers and 2 stressors that cause tantrums by Mr. Bee
2. The Power of Timeouts by Mr. Bee
3. The Case Against Timeouts by Mr. Bee
4. Three Ways to say "no" to your kids by Mr. Bee
5. From Devil to Angel: "Tina's No" by mrs. wagon
6. What Shamu Taught Me About Happy Toddlers by Mr. Bee
7. The Best Parenting Book I've Ever Read by Mr. Bee
8. Cracking the code on toddler tantrums by Mrs. Jacks
9. What would Ellie do? Managing tantrums. by Mrs. Jacks
10. The Trenches of Toddler-Dom by Mrs. High Heels
11. The Nurtured Heart Approach: Disciplining for Greatness by Mrs. Twine
12. Diagnosing Tantrums and Behavioral Problems for 3-4 Year Olds by Mrs. Bee

The Nurtured Heart Approach to Consequences part 1 of 2

1. The Nurtured Heart Approach: Disciplining for Greatness by Mrs. Twine
2. The Nurtured Heart Approach to Consequences by Mrs. Twine