Very Practical Guide to Discipline with Young Children

This book offers a number of ways adults can interact with children to improve everyone's sanity. The anecdotes are engaging, the ideas intriguing. Also, this book is very well written.I don't think anyone yet has written a book that covers satisfactory discipline for ALL children, but this will definitely help with MOST of them!

Ms Mitchell presents a four step plan for the adult to use as they address a situation, a way of thinking and acting before approaching the child and during the interaction. These mandates are ANTICIPATE, HESITATE, INVESTIGATE and COMMUNICATE. Ms Mitchell explains these clearly and concisely. She uses many anecdotes and examples to explain her theories and to suggest alternative parental responses. Through the examples, she encourages the adult to think about their own initial "gut" reaction and how using her format, one might come up with a different, more effective response to the child. She also gives a comment at the end of each case to summarize the issue. She gives some very good concrete suggestions which are helpful and insightful. Ms Mitchell helps parents understand how their words and behaviors are received by the child, how it sounds to them and how it feels, both at the time it occurs as well as the cumulative effect. My only criticism is that there may be too many anecdotes. Often they flow one right after the other and the summary is brief, without more than one reframing of the situation. Overall, I felt she covered a large array of issues and situations and was consistent in her approach to each situation, keeping true to her mandates.