With this groundbreaking publication, parenting expert and acclaimed author of the bestselling publication Simplicity Parenting Kim John Payne, M.Ed., flips the script on children’s demanding or defiant behavior and lays away an elegantly basic intend to support parents in establishing caring, age-sensitive boundaries that help children feel safe and settled. In a nutshell: What looks like misbehavior is in fact your children’s sign that they’re sense lost, they are trying to find direction and seeking to about The Spirit of Discipline you to steer them back on course.

Payne offers parents heartwarming help and encouragement by merging astute observations with private and frequently funny stories from his longer career being a mother or father educator and a school and family members counselor. In accessible language, he clarifies the relevance of current brain- and child-development research to day-to-day parenting. Breaking the continuum of youth into three levels, Payne says that parents need to play three different jobs, each corresponding to 1 of those levels, to help steer kids through their emotional growth and inevitable challenging moments:

– The Governor, who’s comfortably and firmly in charge-setting limitations and building decisions for the early years up to around the age of eight

– The Gardener, who watches for emotional growth and makes decisions based on careful listening, assisting tweens in making programs that take the whole family’s needs into consideration

– The Guide, who is both a sounding board and moral compass for emerging adults, helping teenagers build a sense of their life’s path as a way to impact healthy decision making

Useful and rooted in keeping sense, The Soul of Discipline gives parents permission to become warm and nurturing but also calm and strong (not overreactive). It offers clear, doable strategies to get things back on the right track for parents who feeling that their children’s behavior offers fallen into a troubling design. And on top of that, it provides healthful direction to the complete family so parents can spend less hard work on outmoded, punitive self-discipline and even more on linking with and experiencing their kids.