- Communicate your love to your child in word and deed each and every day.
- Listen for the feelings behind your child's verbal communication and respond to those feelings in an accepting way.
- Show respect for your child's unique ideas and opinions.
- Discuss mutual goals and plans with your child frequently. Go over the next day's schedule at bedtime. Make sure everyone knows where they will be going, what they will be doing, and what each person's responsibility will be.
- Notify your child personally when plans change suddenly.
- Continue to touch your child affectionately with hugs, pats on the back, sitting together to read, etc.
- Model and teach courtesy, patience, kindness, thoughtfulness, honesty, loyalty, responsibility, fairness, and forgiveness.
- Give your child age-appropriate responsibilities at home.
- Recognize, acknowledge, and praise your child when he maks an effort to do something good -good school papers, obeying parents, helping at home. Make a big deal out of it!
- Avoid destructive expressions of anger such as insulting, sarcasm, shaming, yelling, or spanking the child. Use Discipline with Dignity
Strategies for Discipline with Dignity
- Making Healthy Families at Parents Place
- 20 Alternatives to Punishment - Aware Parenting
- Encouraging Cooperation - Adele Faber
- Goodkids - Clifford Harrison
- Ten Keys to Successful Parenting - Positive Parenting Online
Attachment Parenting Links
- What the Research Says About Physical Punishment University of Minnesota
- I Am Your Child
- The Natural Child Project
- Attachment Parenting International Home Page
First page> Attachment Parenting of Older Children Introduction