infonews.co.nz
INDEX
FAMILY

Parents Urged To Ditch Time Out Techniques

Wednesday 10 November 2010, 11:16AM

By Village Public Relations

635 views

A punishment-free approach to parenting advocated by a New Zealand couple who discourage the use of time out, yelling, threats and bribery is about to be held up as an international example for others to follow.

Genevieve and Dan Simperingham founded The Peaceful Parent Institute four years ago and run nationwide seminars on how to parent in a kind, calm and peaceful manner while maintaining strong, clear and fair boundaries for children.

The couple are being filmed by South Korean television station EBS (Educational Broadcasting System) for a documentary about the most contemporary and up-to-the-minute parenting education in New Zealand.

“EBS is particularly interested in parenting for children that does not involve punishments and yet still is very effective,” Genevieve explains.

“They have already filmed one of our ‘discipline without punishment’ seminars and they’ll be interviewing a number of families we have worked with.”

Genevieve says The Peaceful Parent Institute offers a holistic approach to help foster a child’s emotional wellbeing and emotional intelligence.

“Although using rewards or threats may work in the short term, adopting a punishment-free approach is a key factor in establishing relationships that are based on trust, mutual respect and for creating a good team spirit in the family,” she says.

“Many parenting approaches focus on changing behaviour using techniques that involve time out and creating artificial consequences for the child. But when we get children to act through manipulation, threats, bribes and punishments we are teaching them through our modelling that this is how they should act in their relationships with others.”

Genevieve says children who feel coerced often harbour resentment and try to rebel, so the conflict quickly resurfaces again either towards the parent, toys or property, towards a sibling, a friend or towards themselves for no apparent reason.

“All too often parenting approaches focus on stopping the behaviour in the moment without necessarily changing the patterns in the long-term. The alternative is communication; active listening, and expression of empathy.

Genevieve says if a child can still feel cared for and respected even though they’ve done something wrong, they will generally live up to the parent’s expectations of being a caring and responsible young person.

“Our overall approach is a much healthier model based on clear and patient communication and trust in the child’s basic goodness. It fosters connection, confidence, trust, lateral thinking, problem-solving skills and conflict resolution skills which aim to both meet the needs of both the parent and the child.”

For more information on The Peaceful Parent Institute approach and available seminars visit www.peaceful-parent.com