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Until recently, traditional parenting techniques such as consequences, points and rewards, and spanking have been used by parents throughout the world as effective measures of correction for behaviors deemed socially inappropriate. In fact, schools continue to use all of these, including spanking, as a measure to deter problem behaviors in children. New findings from the field of neuroscience are demonstrating that such measures may in fact be detrimental to healthy brain development in children and may even be one of the major causes of the over-prescription of medication.

What Science Reveals

The amygdala is an almondshaped cluster of nerve fibers which is located at the base of the brain. According to New York University neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, author of The Emotional Brain and Synaptic Self, it is the fear receptor of the brain. It is primarily responsible for sensing threats in the environment. As such, the amygdala is not a part of the higher evolved thinking brain, but rather controls the emotional hemisphere of an individual. This area of the brain is directly linked to the first place stress hormones released from within the neural system, scientifically known as corticotrophin releasing factor. Parenting techniques which are threatening, fear-based, lacking in empathy or parental compassion can cause the amygdala to release large amounts of stress hormones into the brain and body system. In many instances, this release, if occurring routinely, without sufficient interruption, can create the experience of trauma.

Trauma

Trauma is defined as any stressful event which is prolonged, overwhelming, or unpredictable. Traumatic levels of stress hormones distributed via the amygdala have the potential to create neuronal damage to another area of the brain responsible for clear thinking and short-term memory. In fact, research points out that during times of high stress, thinking processes become confused and distorted, and the short-term memory is suppressed. Findings from the field of neuroscience indicate that during critical times of development, the use of such punitive techniques for behavior control may initiate the early framework for difficulty interacting in important social arenas such as in school and with peers. These social struggles are most often noted by behavior described as hyperactive, depressed, or aggressive. These behaviors then become the basis for medication being prescribed to children. In this instance, not only may the medication being prescribed mask a deeper challenge for the child, but it may possibly be being administered for all of the wrong reasons.

Information regarding the connection between punitive behavior management, stress, increasingly disruptive behavior and the routine prescription of medication to children for the purpose of promoting behavior that the adult world can more readily tolerate is not often discussed within parenting and educational forums. The field of neuroscience has been less successful in sharing their message than pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, parents are being encouraged to educate themselves both about the use of traditional parenting techniques and the use of psychiatric medication in children.

Copyright? 2006 Dr. Bryan Post. All rights reserved.

About the Author

For an updated list of recommended readings on the subject, please visit the: Beyond Consequences Institute. To learn more about positive parenting techniques, visit www.postfamilysystem.com and www.parentingtheadoptedchild.com .

Copyright 2006 Living Your Best Life

Today I was working with one of my clients and we were looking at the issue of helping young children deal with their frustrations. She was telling me how her little boy became so frustrated that he would bite himself. Toddlers often find dealing with their emotions really difficult because they are developing new skills. Sometimes they can?t find the words to express themselves or they have difficulty mastering a skill because they lack the physical dexterity required for completing some tasks. We need to understand why children have tantrums and change our attitude to them because tantrums are a horribly normal part of child development. I remember feeling embarrassed and annoyed when my daughter went through the terrible three?s stage. When I realised why the tantrums were occurring I was able to minimise them. I noticed her tantrums were usually pent up frustration so I began to teach her how to deal with her emotions. Helping children to deal with their emotions is a valuable life skill that many raging adults have not learnt during childhood.

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Copyright 2006 Living Your Best Life

Today I was working with one of my clients and we were looking at the issue of helping young children deal with their frustrations. She was telling me how her little boy became so frustrated that he would bite himself. Toddlers often find dealing with their emotions really difficult because they are developing new skills. Sometimes they can’t find the words to express themselves or they have difficulty mastering a skill because they lack the physical dexterity required for completing some tasks. We need to understand why children have tantrums and change our attitude to them because tantrums are a horribly normal part of child development. I remember feeling embarrassed and annoyed when my daughter went through the terrible three’s stage. When I realised why the tantrums were occurring I was able to minimise them. I noticed her tantrums were usually pent up frustration so I began to teach her how to deal with her emotions. Helping children to deal with their emotions is a valuable life skill that many raging adults have not learnt during childhood.

There are many ways in which we can teach our children how to deal with their emotions. Here are two effective techniques: Firstly we can name the feelings for them. For example I could say, ‘ Ryan its frustrating when the pencil keeps slipping out of your hand.’

Secondly we can teach them how to use the traffic lights technique. This simple technique works really well. You draw traffic light on a piece of card, the symbols are red - intense feeling, yellow - getting calmer, and green - content or happy. you would ask your child to point to a colour on the traffic light that demonstrated how angry, sad, frustrated he was feeling. Lets take the example of Ryan. I’d ask Ryan to show we on the traffic light how frustrated he was feeling. He would point to red. I’d say to Ryan, ‘Right now you are feeling really frustrated.’ He’d probably point to the red light on the traffic lights. I’d then encourage Ryan to work on feeling calm again. I would ask Ryan to pretend that there were five candles in front of him and ask him to try blowing the imaginary candles out. I would observe his response until I could see that he was becoming calmer. Then I’d ask him to show me again on the traffic light how he was feeling. We’d carry on blowing imaginary candles until he was back to green on the traffic light.

Finally when Ryan was in a calmer frame of mind I would teach him how to deal with his emotions in a constructive manner. By asking open-ended or multiple choice questions a child can learn how to express his emotions. Helping children deal with their feelings eventually reduces tantrums and empowers them for life.

About the Author

Henri Joyce teaches effective parenting at the University of Masters, facilitates teleclasses and parenting workshops. She also offers one-to-one and group coaching. For more transformational parenting techniques and to claim some valuable downloads, you can subscribe to her popular newsletter at:http://www.effectiveparenting.co.uk

Dr Phil in his effective parenting survey of 17,000 people found that the two top challenges facing parents were making punishment work and improving school performance. In my experience as a class teacher and coach I have noticed that the biggest obstacle to maintaining effective discipline within the home is a lack of constructive, consistency discipline. Effective discipline should be positive, constructive and for correction rather than punitive. Many parents look upon discipline as a last resort when they are in a rage and therefore were confused and inconsistent in their use of Time Out.

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Dr Phil in his effective parenting survey of 17,000 people found that the two top challenges facing parents were making punishment work and improving school performance. In my experience as a class teacher and coach I have noticed that the biggest obstacle to maintaining effective discipline within the home is a lack of constructive, consistency discipline. Effective discipline should be positive, constructive and for correction rather than punitive. Many parents look upon discipline as a last resort when they are in a rage and therefore were confused and inconsistent in their use of Time Out.

Picture this! Your child is screaming like you are killing him, arms flaying wildly feet thrashing around. You feel angry and frustrated and you’d like to respond by shouting back at him or worse still giving him a swift slap on the bottom. Does this resonate with you? Well I’ve experienced this many times too. Tantrums are unfortunately horribly normal. Most young children have tantrums, throw toys, bite or stamp when they are frustrated. Although embarrassing and irritating, when dealt with calmly by using effective discipline techniques most children grow out of it. Time Out is often over used by parents who have not thought up other discipline strategies.

Be Consistent it is vital that your child knows that you always follow through.

Children don’t like being ignored so if your child is behaviour is petty ignore him or her. For difficult behaviour that cannot be ignored, and for children who regularly disobey their parents Time Out can be useful if used correctly. The purpose of time out is to calm your child down and interrupt difficult behaviour. If a child is hysterical Time Out may not be the best solution. Research shows that Time Out is most effective for children three to six years of age. Time Out is inappropriate for children under two.

Time out is only effective when: ? The adult remains calm ? The child understands in advance about Time Out ? It is viewed as a calming measure ? It is not over used

To use Time out as an effective parenting technique I suggest the following guidelines. Children must be told clearly which behaviours lead to Time Out. Parent cannot change the rules on a whim or when they are angry. For example if the rules are Time Out is used for biting, hitting and throwing things you cannot decide to send your child to Time out for refusing to eat her carrots at meal time. Remind her that Time Out is a way of helping her to calm down and behave better. Children should be shown where the time out area is in advance.

Choose a safe, quiet boring place. Hallways, bottom step, chair facing a wall or a small rug are all suitable Time Out places. It is always a good idea to have a back up room to send your child if he refuses to stay in the Time Out area. Remember Time Out is not a punishment so don’t use a scary place such as a dark cupboard or cellar.

To be effective Time Out needs to be short about three minutes for a three-year-old, four minutes for a four year old, a minute for each year of a child’s life.

When your child has been quiet for about two minutes invite him to come out. If your child refuses to come out don’t cajole or nag simply ignore him, he will join you when he is ready. Ask your child for an apology. It is important at this point to discuss calmly and pleasantly what has happened don’t lecture. Many parents omit the final phase - the discussion. It is in fact the most important part of the using Time Out effectively because during the discussion the child is taught the correct way to behave. Finally give your child a hug to reassure him that you still love him. This is how to use time out as an effective parenting technique.

About the Author

Henri Joyce is an experienced teacher and coaches effective parenting and parenting through divorce. She teaches a effective parenting techniques at the University Of Masters. To claim some valuable downloads and newsletters on effective parenting, you can subscribe to her popular newsletter at: http://www.effectiveparenting.co.uk

A step by step article explaining how to use Time Out as an effective parenting technique. Henri explaing that the skill of using time out effectively relies on a calm, constructive positive approach to dicipline.

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Many parents find trying to get their child to bed at night to be one big struggle. The child may play up, whinge and even cry. When in bed, the child may then repeatedly keep getting out of bed and coming downstairs. This article gives advice on how to successfully get your child into bed at night, without all of this fuss.

Some children even though they know that they are tired, do not want to miss out on any of the action or excitement. They want to spend as much time with mom and dad as possible. They can even see the fact that they have to go to bed before their parents as unjust and even cruel. These types of children will want to disrupt and even avoid going to bed at all cost.

I myself have two young children and have been through this experience myself. My daughter especially needs her sleep and can be very moody in the mornings, if she has not had a particular amount of hours of it. As a parent it can become very frustrating as well as upsetting when you see your child crying because they do not want to go to bed. Comments like, please dad just one more program on the television, were far too regular, and at times I felt like backing down.

I have now learnt via reading many books on parenting, how to best deal with this situation. Each child now has a set time when they have to be in bed by. This is a time that they have both agreed to!

They get changed into their pyjamas around half an hour before this time, and then can either spend that period of time playing with their toys or watching the television. If they want to play, we ensure that the games are relaxing ones and not too energetic.

If there is a program that is on later than their agreed bedtimes, I agree to video it for them, this way they know that they are not missing out etc.

I have agreed that I will read them a story at bedtime. This is something they both love and helps them to wind down and relax. They are also given a drink to go to bed with, therefore there is no need for them to keep coming downstairs. This drink is always a juice and should not be fizzy.

I have explained to each child the importance of sleep and that it should be something to enjoy and not to see as some sort of punishment. I have even gone as far as saying that I would love to go to bed at the time that they do, unfortunately their mother does not allow it.

I have tried to make their bedrooms their own little palace. A place that they want to spend time, a place which they find fun, relaxing and comfortable.

My son likes to hear music and therefore we play a tape of his favourite songs in his room. The volume is set quite low and this certainly helps him to get to sleep quite quickly.

These tips have helped to make our childrens bedtimes a pleasant experience, where it once was quite fraught. The children themselves are now into a routine, a routine they are happy with. I hope this advice proves useful to you as well. Good luck.

About the Author

Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including:

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Do you want to be a better parent? Do have have ample or too much parenting tips to follow?

With all the different parenting tips that are out there how is anyone sub post to know what they are going to follow and what is some bad tips to follow.

Just go to the Internet and search for “parenting tips” and you will find hundreds of such information. So how to do filter them out?

One of the main important tips someone can receive is that you should always make sure that your child is safe in everything that you and they do. This is especially true in a vehicle. You want to make sure that you child is properly buckled in your vehicle and that you are suing the correct safety seat for them.

This is true no matter what their age is. You are even going to want to make sure that you are not going to leave them in the vehicle for any amount of time by themselves. No matter how you were to look at it they are not going to be safe for even the shortest amount of time. It may be too hot in the vehicle for the child or it could be too cold for them. Plus you may have you vehicle stolen from where you have left it with your child in it.

You are also going to make sure that your child is going to be safe when they are at the babysitters. The best thing that you can do to make sure that they are safe at the sitters is to do a background check and even a reference check as well. One other thing that you are able to do is to check out the different items that are in the babysitters premises is going to be safe for your child too.

There are many different parenting tips you are able to receive but you really need to make sure that your children are going to be safe no matter where they are and what they are going to be doing for the day. Because you are not going to be able to replace your child no matter how hard you try. You child is a gift to you and your family so take good care of them with all of your decisions you make because that would be the best parenting tip that you are ever going to receive from anyone.

Remember: Start ‘training’ your child when they are young so that it will be easier to take care of them when they are older.

About the Author

For more information on the parenting and how you can be a better parent, please visit: http://www.parenting-tips-online.info

If you are like most parents, you probably want to raise healthy, smart kids. You may already have some ideas on how to achieve this. Here are some parenting tips that will help parents ensure their children develop to their full potential.

One of the parenting tips that work best is giving your children quantity and quality time. When you spend time with your kids, try to engage them in meaningful conversations. Try to build fun and healthy communications and relationships while the kids are young.

Raising children is a confusing business. There are times when any parent or caregiver can use additional parenting advice. There are many books available to parents to help get through the day-to-day issues.

Every child is different, and every parent is different, too. Because of this, there are no cookie-cutter solutions that will work for everyone. The best suggestion is for you to review all the solutions you discover and take a few quiet minutes to think about them. Modify the suggestions to best suit your family, and don’t be afraid to try out more than one until you discover the best answer.