Discipline and punishment are different things and understanding that are a step too far for most parents these days especially single parents. Parenting can be really hard mainly when your children are not obeying your words. Are you a parent looking for the most effective ways of disciplining your kids? Listed below are some of the wonderful steps for positive parenting to teach discipline to your young ones.

• Teach Your Children

As a parent always remember that your primary goal is to teach your children. You need to think about the best possible way to teach them without yelling, screaming or being harsh to your kids when they say they don’t understand what you are trying to teach them. So patience is the key. Come down to the level of your kids to communicate with them in a better way. Engage in games and other activities through which you can teach them without boredom.

• Align Your Expectations With Reality

Your children are young and they are supposed to make mistakes. The bitter truth and the reality is, they are going to mess up. We as adults still make mistakes even though we have been on this Earth much longer than our children. Just think how bad you would be feeling if someone yells, scream or hit on you, just because you made a mistake. Children are gradually learning facts about life and it is fine for them to make mistakes. As parents, it's our responsibility to align our expectations about this to reality, before sitting with kids to teach them.

• Understand Your Child’s Learning Style

What works for you won’t necessarily work for your children. There are different learning styles and some children are visual learners and they would like to learn by visualizing. And some children are auditory learners which means they would like to learn by listening. While there is another type of learner called tactile learners who would like to learn by touching things and experiencing with their hands on. The fact is if you want your children to learn successfully you first need to figure out what their learning style is.

• Meet Your Children Where They Are

Take the time to meet your children where they are. Some times they might get stuck at a certain level. Talking about “what you shouldn’t have to do “ does nothing to change what you actually do have to do. Stop thinking that you shouldn’t be saying the same thing over and over. Instead, take the time to meet them where they are and make your children realize your support.

• Talk  to The Part Of Your Child’s Brain That You Want To Actually Listen

In a child, the higher-level thinking happens in the frontal cortex of the brain. The part of the brain that is based on fear and fight or flight is the middle ear brain. So when we are screaming at our children, the middle part of the brain is activated. If you want your children to learn better, it is the front part of the brain that needs to be activated. So if you really want to teach effectively, stop screaming at them, step back and just talk to them from the front where there is more possibility to activate their front brain. You really don’t need to yell, for teaching children.

• Give Your Children Choices

Whether you acknowledge it or not, your children have choices in every situation and that means they even have a choice even not to listen to you. If they choose not to listen to you, provide them with consequences. Although it is awesome to validate and acknowledge that your children have choices, it is really important to not enable your children to keep doing ineffective behaviors. To stop enabling them, you should provide the consequences. That can help them to learn a lesson.

Children who have the lowest self-esteem have no rules and no consequences while children with higher self-esteem have rules and consequences. But those children with the highest self-esteem have rules, consequences, and explanations. Such children understand why their choice leads to a specific consequence.

Your ultimate goal is to teach them discipline. When you do that, you make them understand that life has choices and consequences.  Follow through whatever you say and show them that you are consistent. That way your children will know that you mean what you say. This can build up your credibility with your children. More consistent you are, more credibility you will have in your child’s mind.