The Soul of Discipline: The Simplicity Parenting Approach to Warm, Firm, and Calm Guidance - from Toddlers to Teens
By Kim John Payne

In this groundbreaking book, parenting expert and acclaimed author of the bestselling book Simplicity Parenting Kim John Payne, M.Ed., flips the script on children's challenging or defiant behavior and lays out an elegantly simple plan to support parents in establishing loving, age-sensitive boundaries that help children feel safe and settled. In short: What looks like misbehavior is actually your children's signal that they're feeling lost, that they are trying to find direction and looking to you to guide them back on course.
 
Payne gives parents heartwarming help and encouragement by combining astute observations with sensitive and often funny stories from his long career as a parent educator and a school and family counselor. In accessible language, he explains the relevance of current brain- and child-development studies to day-to-day parenting. Breaking the continuum of childhood into three stages, Payne says that parents need to play three different roles, each corresponding to one of those stages, to help steer children through their emotional growth and inevitable challenging times:

• The Governor, who is comfortably and firmly in charge--setting limits and making decisions for the early years up to around the age of eight
• The Gardener, who watches for emotional growth and makes decisions based on careful listening, assisting tweens in making plans that take the whole family's needs into account
• The Guide, who is both a sounding board and moral compass for emerging adults, helping teens build a sense of their life's direction as a way to influence healthy decision making

Practical and rooted in common sense, The Soul of Discipline gives parents permission to be warm and nurturing but also calm and firm (not overreactive). It gives clear, doable strategies to get things back on track for parents who sense that their children's behavior has fallen into a troubling pattern. And best of all, it provides healthy direction to the entire family so parents can spend less time and energy on outmoded, punitive discipline and more on connecting with and enjoying their kids.

About the Author

Kim John Payne is an Australian who has, for 24 years, worked throughout the world as a counselor, consultant/researcher and educator of both children and adults. He has been helping children, adolescents and families explore issues such as social difficulties with siblings and classmates, attention and behavioral issues at home and school, and a range of emotional issues such as defiance, aggression, addiction and self-esteem.

Kim strives to deepen understanding and give practical tools for life that arise out of the burning social issues of our time. He is based in Harlemville, New York with his wife and two daughters.

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group 
Pages: 256
Size: 16.5x23.6 cm 
Format: Hardback 
ISBN: 9780345548672
Publication date: 2015/02/06