"One, Two..." Teaching Through Love Insterad of Fear by Pam Leo

I read a really amazing article today. There was this really great statement about counting when disciplining our kids...but it is the same for any threating type of discipline.

Counting at a child communicates, "I am bigger and more powerful than you and you 'd better do as I say or I'm going to (in some way) hurt you." When a big kid says to a smaller one, "Do what I say or I'm going to hurt you," we call it bullying. When an adult communicates the same thing to a child by counting, we call it discipline. When we treat children in ways that take away their dignity we teach them how to take away other's dignity. If we want kids to stop bullying, we have to stop bullying kids. The power of fear is easy and quick but short-lived. The power of love requires more work and takes longer but children never outgrow its influence. Children count on us to teach them the way, so let's stop counting at them.

What a great way to explain it. I'm not perfect. I use threats on occassion also...but I am trying to change that and this definitely helped me see why I want to do that.

Here is a link to the entire article:

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/pam_leo2.html