Language and communication are the keys to successful discipline. The language patterns a

parent or teacher uses when disciplining children influence behavior. When we control the

messages we send to children, we control the way children feel and think about our messages;

when we control the way children feel and think about our messages, we control their behavior.

Carefully chosen words and crafted messages can actively create the mental images and mood

needed in children to move them away from noncompliance and oppositional behavior and

closer to comply with what we asked them to do. When we persuade children to behave, we

control their behavior through language, using influence rather than power and domination.

Effective persuasive discipline means that we are able to communicate using just the right words

to get the positive outcome we intended. Persuasive discipline contains specific language

patterns and ways of talking to children to shift the emotional state of the child so that we

influence and promote positive behavioral change.

If you talk and act as if what you want is true, your child will believe you. When we assume

something, we send the message to the child that he or she already wants to do what we are

asking; for example, asking, “Do you want carrots or celery?” assumes that the child wants and

will eat one of these two vegetables.

When we use positive directions, we get higher compliance than when we use negative

directions. Negative directions tell children what not to do; “Don’t make noises,” or “Don’t hit

your little brother” are examples of negative directions. On the other hand, positive directions tell

children what they need to do to comply. Work in changing the negative directions you give

children into positive directions. Shapiro (1994) recommends that we write down the negative

directions we typically say in one column, and then, in a second column, we change those

statements into directions that tell the child, in a very specific way, what he or she should be

doing instead. Always describe what you want in positive terms; for example, “Talk in a quiet

voice” rather than “Stop shouting.”