5 Ways to Discipline Your Kids in a Mindful Way

Teaching your kids discipline can be a really hard task and often stressful. Here are Joanne’s tips to help you discipline your kids the Zen way.

1. Boundaries: What is okay and what isn’t okay

Be clear on what your boundaries are and focus on applying these consistently as this is how young children learn best.

2. Role-model your boundaries to your children

How to be calm, how to use self-control, how to use empathy and compassion, how to be respectful, how to focus – be mindful.

3. Before reminding your child of your boundaries, connect to them

Use your emotional brain to connect to their emotional brain. Children under 5 are predominantly in their emotional brains and we are all there when we are upset, angry, frustrated or feeling any emotion. When we connect calmly, with empathy and compassion in order to calm a child down, they are then more ready to hear the teaching which requires them to use their newly developing logical brain.

4. Under the age of 5, natural consequences are the only age appropriate way to discipline a child

These would only occur after connection and teaching had taken place first. This might include removal of a toy if they are struggling to play with it gently even after you have connected and shown them how to play with it. Both natural and logical consequences are appropriate for children over the age of 5 as their logical brain is now starting to develop – this might mean them having to use their pocket money to pay for something they broke, again this would be after connection and teaching had taken place.

5. The key thing when disciplining a child

Is to ask yourself – ‘What are they struggling with and what do I need to teach them in order to help them stay within the boundary?”. Remaining calm, focusing on helping and teaching them rather than punishment, and accepting that your children will make lots of mistakes and test lots of boundaries help us to use our logical brain at this time instead of adding our emotions to the situation.

Read more: Mindful Parenting: What Is It & How Do We Do It?