Adult leadership and guidance in the education of children and adolescents is essential. However, it is very important to always seek to maintain an environment of mutual respect and collaboration.

Positive discipline is an educational approach based on communication, understanding, and empathy. It seeks to promote a balance between kindness and firmness, with the goal of understanding the behavior of children and adolescents, even when it is inappropriate, and guiding them back toward respectful behavior based on mutual respect.

This approach does not involve excessive control or excessive permissiveness; instead, it seeks to balance kindness with firmness. Kindness helps counteract the problems that excessive control may bring, such as low self-esteem, rebellion, resentment, among others. On the other hand, firmness helps prevent the problems that excessive permissiveness may cause, such as being spoiled, entitlement, or insecurity.

Being kind means being respectful and understanding of another person’s emotions and feelings, while being firm means knowing how to set boundaries and establish agreements. Within this approach, it is very important to involve children and adolescents when establishing limits; this way, they will understand that these limits are necessary, take responsibility, and be more willing to follow them (for example, discussing limits regarding television use or cellphone use).

Another important pillar of positive discipline is emotional connection in education. This involves establishing horizontal communication with the goal of listening to and understanding the other person’s emotions, without judging or questioning them. It is very important that we help children and adolescents reflect on their behavior, so that they become aware of their actions and take responsibility. Using the following questions can be helpful: What do you feel? What do you think? What do you decide to do?

These actions can help us discover what is behind the behavior of children and adolescents, allowing us to find solutions..

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If you would like to learn more about positive discipline, contact Edúcame Más.