About the Book

You, like any other par­ent, want to be the best par­ent you can be. All par­ents have times when parental reac­tions replace think­ing. It’s at that moment when you want to be reminded of how you’ve cho­sen to par­ent. It’s at that moment when you need your restraint to kick-in. It’s at that moment when you want to use con­scious dis­ci­pline so you can respond, not sim­ply react and punish—again.

This book is for par­ents who have chil­dren ages one through ten. I focus on that age group because I firmly believe that ages one through ten are the foun­da­tional years of life, the time when par­ents are learn­ing to par­ent, and chil­dren are just learn­ing about life. What’s cre­ated dur­ing those years tends to dic­tate how the rest of child­hood and par­ent­ing will go. It’s also the eas­i­est time to change your par­ent­ing style, before reac­tion habits are set in stone for both par­ent and child.

Believe me when I tell you I’m not an advo­cate of strict or per­mis­sive par­ent­ing. I’m not at all inter­ested in let­ting chil­dren off-the-hook. Quite the oppo­site, in fact, ask my kids! I am an advo­cate of lov­ing, sup­port­ive, empa­thetic, firm, clear, and unyield­ing par­ent­ing which respect­fully teaches chil­dren about behav­ior and life. That’s what I describe as Dis­ci­plin­ing Con­sciously.

This book shares new ways to look at and apply con­scious dis­ci­pline with­out react­ing, while still being firm enough to cre­ate change. In other words, the book shows you how to cre­ate a bal­ance between the job of cor­rect­ing a child and lov­ing a child.