When I was first learning about positive parenting, I admit that I was confused. If I didn’t punish poor behavior, wasn’t I being permissive? How would my kid learn what was acceptable and what wasn’t if there were no “consequences?” I loved the idea behind the philosophy – raising my sons in a positive, loving environment where we focused on building trust and strong relationships. It sounded great on paper, but I didn’t understand how to actually put it into practice. I didn’t know what to do when my kid misbehaved.
My shift came when I finally understood that behavior was communication – and wrongful behavior was a cry for help from my child. That’s when positive parenting clicked for me. Before I discovered positive parenting, I was constantly asking “which consequence fits this behavior?” or “how long should I punish him for this?” Now, when a problem arises, I ask “What is this behavior telling me and what does my son need?”
That is a huge shift! I stopped seeing my son’s “misbehavior” as a punishable moment and started seeing it as a teachable moment. The reason I put misbehavior in quotation marks is that it’s a mere judgment, and part of my shift was that I really made an effort to stop judging my children based on fleeting actions driven by strong emotions and an underdeveloped brain. For example, what I had misjudged as defiance from my three year old turned out to be emotional pain. He was dealing with a new baby brother, loss of time with mommy, and a confusing new role as “the big boy” even though he was still so very little. Looking past the behavior and seeing the hurt driving it stopped time-outs, behavior charts, and other behavior management systems in their tracks and helped me understand what I had to do to heal the hurt, which was empathize, reconnect, and reassure.
Viewing behavior as teachable moments helps you shift away from using punishments that miss the mark because they don’t deal with the underlying emotions or thoughts driving the behavior. This also helps you avoid permissiveness because you are still focused on fixing the problem. You aren’t just waving it off as something your child can’t control. By using it as a teachable moment, you’re automatically focused on the word “teachable,” and that’s where the positive parenting magic is! It’s really about teaching what’s right and acceptable instead of punishing what’s wrong. It’s about empowering your child with tools and skills to really do better, not just to stuff those feelings down or hide his behavior from you.
