Reddit reviews No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
We found 9 Reddit comments about No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
No Drama Discipline The Whole Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child s Developing Mind
It's a little early as you don't even have your kid yet, but there are a couple books I found really helpful as a new dad:
No-Drama Discipline for helping frame frustrating situations and to give me some tools to deal with them in positive and productive ways.
Parentspeak: What's wrong with how we talk to our children because I really needed to be more aware of how the things I say shape the developing mind of my kid. I'm not saying this one is for everyone, and some people reject it out of hand because they don't believe that seemingly innocuous words impact their kids, but I found it gave me a lot of things to think about.
I want to encourage you and say your CPTSD won’t affecting your parenting and you providing her with love and security is enough, but I also don’t want to delude you into a false sense of security. To answer your question as to how I do it: Firstly, I put in a massive amount of effort everyday to keep myself grounded and mindful and conscious of how I’m acting/reacting towards my child. On top of that, I never let myself slip into depressive states. On top of that, I have learned to manage and control all of my triggers so that my emotional states never negatively affect my child.
One major element of CPTSD is that it is an attachment disorder. This attachment disorder WILL affect your ability to provide a consistent sense of safety and security to your little one unless you learn how to manage and counteract those insecurities. Another element of CPTSD is that it causes you to develop a distrust/distaste for humans, and a desire to avoid human interaction. This will be absolutely detrimental to your child as he/she ages. All children rely on their parents to provide them with safe, healthy and consistent family and friends. It’s a very tiring and very difficult job, but it creates a ‘safety net’ of security on which your child can lean. How you interact with and value others will turn into how your child interacts with and values others. You will have to spend lots of time around other moms, letting your child play with their child. It’s a strain on you emotionally and mentally, but it’s necessary for healthy child development.
The best advice I can give you as a fellow parent with CPTSD is to start searching for a trauma psychologist and get an appointment scheduled ASAP. Of course anyone can recover from CPTSD without the aid of a psychologist, but when you add a child to the mix, quality and speed of recovery becomes a very important factor. Getting a psychologist to help you process your trauma and learn newer and better ways to do things will save you a lot of time and heartache. A psychologist will also teach you the importance of obtaining and maintaining friendships, and how to better manage all the triggers that parenting will bring up for you.
In the meantime, here is a short list of my all-time favorite parenting books. I’ve read probably hundreds of parenting books at this point: most are bad, a few are great. These are the best, most knowledgeable books I’ve found for ‘people like us’, at least in my opinion:
The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering our Children
ParentSpeak: What's Wrong with How We Talk to Our Children--and What to Say Instead
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind
The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development
The Attachment Parenting Book : A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby
No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
Feel free to PM me anytime :)
How old is your child? Can you think of specific situations you have struggled with?
First, full disclosure. I'm not a parent, but I am wrestling with this myself while waiting to adopt an infant. I am also acting as a pseudo secondary mother to my teenage sister who is still under the thumb of our nmom. The work for the former, in conjunction with facing issues with nmom head on, has resulted in a huge difference with my sister. I used to perpetuate my mom's abuses, but since then an increase in empathy, patience and respect for autonomy has made all the difference. Situationally it looks different with younger kids, but it comes from the same place.
YMMV of course, but thus far our philosophy can be boiled down to a few core elements:
Of my giant stack of books, I'd recommend:
If you're a busy parent who doesn't have time to read, I highly recommend this Siegel playlist about attachment and this video about communication and boundaries. Those two will probably lead you down a pretty decent youtube rabbit hole.
Good luck!
My LO is only 10 weeks old so I haven't experienced this yet. But my mom was a serious screamer with no temper control so I've been worrying.
Two books have helped:
Not really sure if this will come off as condescending but here are some books for general parenting or parenting kids with behavioral issues. For any folks out there looking for resources.
The Connected Child
https://www.amazon.com/Connected-Child-healing-adoptive-family/dp/0071475001
Mainly focuses on attachment, or lack there of, for adoptive parents but some of the info is good for parents with children who have behavioral issues caused by attachment issues. Does have some religious aspects but also creates space for non-religious folks as well.
The Whole Brian Child
https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strategies-Developing/dp/0553386697 great general parenting book.
No Drama Discipline
https://www.amazon.com/No-Drama-Discipline-Whole-Brain-Nurture-Developing/dp/034554806X help me understand what’s happening in my kids brain in misbehaving and tactics for working through various issues.
These really helped me feel empowered and informed as a parent. Every time we do well with the stuff we feel like the best parents in the world. Hope this helps anyone out there that might need it.
Edit: links and formatting. I suck at it and I’m on mobile so...
2: a word
What a great question! I am really fascinated by the field of infant/early childhood mental health and social-emotional learning in general. It's a fascinating topic that is also somewhat in the early stages. There is much that we need to learn, but also much that we do know, as well.
Priority number one in promoting positive mental health, particularly with children with speech delay and other developmental challenges, is enabling the child to feel safe and calm. There is something called neuroception, which is a person's physiological ability to detect a threat to their system. This term was coined by Dr. Stephen Porges and he has a wealth of information on the subject that you can find at his website if you are interested. Whatever you can do to teach the child how to regulate themselves to a place of feeling calm, at ease, and relaxed is paramount to anything else. For it is in this state that a child is most ready to learn (both academically and also ready to receive instruction or discipline from caregivers). Children and adults are much more receptive to all that we have to offer them when in a state of calm and safety. This allows the pre-frontal cortex (the most advanced part of our brain that regulates higher level thinking, verbal processing, and many other functions) to be fully engaged and receptive. If there is any sense of threat or danger to a child, this portion of the brain goes completely off-line and is rendered useless as the amygdala and limbic system (fight, flight, or freeze response) takes over. There is an incredibly useful explanation of this that you can actually use to teach the child greater awareness of their own brain and how it works. You can find it here.
It is an incredible tool in teaching positive mental health and teaches children how to notice their own physiological responses to events in their daily lives, which leads to greater self-awareness and regulation of their own mental state.
Once you have taught this hand-model of the brain to the child, you can then use it as a way of warning them when their "lid is about to flip" and then provide them with strategies for calming themselves down. You could offer a visual wheel of choice that gives the child options of what to do when they are feeling stressed, angry, etc. This is something you can develop alongside the child and elicit ideas from them when they are calm and relaxed with you. Making it visual will be particularly important and useful to a child with speech delay as they are limited in their ability to verbally express their feelings which can lead to more behavior.
If you are not able to prevent the behavioral issues, then allow the behavior to happen while being present with them and ready to comfort them when they are finished. Be ready to help them calm themselves down by modeling calmness yourself, deep breathing, etc. So much of promoting positive mental health in our children is about cultivating our own positive mental health for ourselves and then modeling that to our child. If we have the reserves to maintain a sense of calm in the midst of stress, then the child will feel the space and freedom to do the same.
I hope that addresses at least some of what you are after. I would appreciate it if you could follow up with some clarifying questions, if not, so that I can better assist you. But before I finish, I wanted to direct you to some really great resources on the topic. There are two great books by Dr. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne-Bryson Ph.D. The first is The Whole-Brain Child which does a great job of explaining, more in-depth, the concepts that I have discussed here. I know you will find it valuable and useful. The second is No-Drama Discipline. This takes the theory of The Whole Brain Child and applies it to discipline, offering practical and useful strategies for use with kids. The third is a book by Dr. Mona Delahooke and is called Social and Emotional Development in Early Intervention. This is a fantastic book, but is also geared toward professionals in early intervention programs. I still believe that you will find a lot of useful ideas and concepts in there, though. Also, be sure to check out Dr. Mona Delahooke's blog for excellent articles addressing these issues. There is a wealth of resource there.
I wish you well as you explore further on the topic. Please let me know if I can clarify anything or provided further resources. All the best to you!
Warmly,
Jeff
Continue with the counselor. Don't be afraid to see a different counselor that is a better fit for you. The problem with the term "counselor", is that is could mean someone with 1 year of college experience or a person with extensive residency with 7 years of university experience. I would look for a registered psychologist who specialized in CBT or EMDR. Although all professionals legally have to report child abuse. However, I don't think simply having the desire to strike your child would be grounds for a CPS call granted you aren't doing it.
First off, I would find a new child care provider. Your mom is still abusing you. The more you are around your mom and subject your children to her behaviour, the worse it will get. There ARE child care providers that are versed in allergies. You may need to pack lunches as well as provide a list of do's and don't's. Consider a in-home nanny, or a child care provider with training.
It is really hard to re-train your brain. You have trained your brain to act out with violence/anger when upset. Retraining that will take serious time, mindfulness, and patience. Consider looking into more anger management courses as well as parenting courses. When in doubt, if you feel like you are going to explode. Make sure your kid is in a safe environment, and leave the area. Go to your room/bathroom. Relax. Takes some breaths.
I can suggest these books:
Simply asking for help shows you care.
Thank you. I will look for it.
Is it this one or this one?
That's somewhat true, but not entirely.
We know from psychological research that explicitly rewarding or praising children's EFFORT is great for them, and praising their innate abilities (intelligence and looks usually, but also just talking about how "you're a natural!") is generally bad for them (see: growth mindset.) We know that there are a number of issues with the children of inconsistent parents: there's a lot more family conflicts, conduct problems, issues with depression, and they have self-esteem issues as adults (there's probably a lot more, honestly.) We also know that children are most compliant (and really, this applies to people and animals in all situations) when you use a combination of both positive reinforcement (giving them things for good behavior) and negative punishment (taking things AWAY for bad behavior) and for younger kids, time-out (see: Guidance for Effective Discipline). We also know that verbal reprimands aren't effective if used frequently, and that spanking (corporal punishment generally) is associated with higher rates of future substance abuse and violent criminal activity, as well as an increase in aggression immediately.
I know you're suggesting there is no ONE authoritative book that tells every parent how to act in every situation, but there are quite a few (this looks particularly good) that say the same sorts of things as what I'm saying, because it's backed up by research.
Are there kids where this won't work? Yeah, probably, but I suspect this sort of parenting would work for a vast majority of kids if parents started when they were very young and continued to put work into their parenting as the children got older. Kids who had parents that DID NOT do this when they were younger (~birth to five years old) could be essentially doomed to be problem children for the rest of their lives (into adulthood) if their parents were substantially poor parents though, for sure.