Discipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring responsible children, without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery

by Judy Arnall

Discipline that you and your child will feel good about! Spanking and Time-outs do NOT work. At last, a positive discipline book that is chockful of practical tips, strategies, skills, and ideas for parents of babies through teenagers, and tells you EXACTLY what to do in the moment, for every type of behaviour, from whining to web surfing. Includes 50 pages of handy charts of the most common behaviour problems and the tools to handle them respectfully! Parents and children today face very different challenges from the previous generation. Today's children play not only in the sandbox down the street, but also in the world wide web, which is too big and complex for parents to control and supervise. As young as aged four, your child can contact the world and the world can contact them. A strong bond between you and your child is critical in order for your child to regard you as their trusted advisor. Traditional discipline methods no longer work with today's children and they destroy your ability to influence your increasingly vulnerable children who need you as their lifeline! You need new discipline tools! Help your child • Strong communication skills for school, career, and relationship success. • Healthy self-esteem, confidence, and greater emotional intelligence. • Assertiveness, empathy, problem-solving, and anger-management skills. • A respectful, loving connection with you! You will • An end to resentment, frustration, anger, tears, and defiance in your parent-child relationship. • Tools to respectfully handle most modern challenging parenting situations, including biting, hitting, tantrums, bedtimes, picky eating, chores, homework, sibling wars, smoking, “attitude,” and video/computer games. • Help for controlling your anger “in the moment” during those trying times. • A loving, respectful, teaching and fun connection with your child! BONUS! 50-page quick reference tool guide included. "Offers a wealth of ideas and suggestions for raising children without the use of punishment of any kind," says Linda Adams, President of P.E.T. Parent Effectiveness Training and Gordon Training International. "The world is in desperate need of gentle, caring discipline techniques. Judy Arnall has created a wonderful, nurturing guide that all parents can benefit from," says Elizabeth Pantley, Author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution, and The No-Cry Discipline Solution. "Parents always prefer to be loving but often don't know how. Arnall's book debunks all the old beliefs about discipline through painful measures such as punishment, consequences or bribes and provides far more effective and kind ways to raise well behaved and thriving children," says Naomi Aldort, Ph.D., Author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. Also translated into Spanish, Greece, Korean, and Chinese.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

440 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Judy Arnall, BA, CCFE, DTM is a certified brain and child development expert and master of non-punitive parenting and education practices.

She has taught family communication and child development at The University of Calgary, Continuing Education, and Alberta Health Services for 13 years in addition to many other health and educational institutions.

Judy is certified to provide training in several programs:

The Growing Brain from 0-5, by ZeroToThree.org
Alberta Health Services' Terrific Toddlers
Attached At The Heart Program
Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting
P.E.T. Parent Effectiveness Training


As a parent of three university graduates, 1 studying at university and 1 Masters student, Judy has a broad understanding of the issues facing parents and the digital generation.

Judy is a parenting expert for Scholar's Choice Canada, Labatt Canada, and Mothering. She is an international award winning professional speaker and a well-known Canadian parenting expert, having given advice for television interviews on CBC, CTV, and Global as well as publications such as Chatelaine, Today’s Parent, Canadian Living, Parents magazine, and newspapers including The Globe and Mail, Sun Media and Postmedia News.

www.professionalparenting.ca
www.judyarnall.com
www.unschoolingtouniversity.com
www.unschoolingcanada.ca
www.attachmentparenting.ca

jarnall@shaw.ca

Reviews

[Jenni Pertuset]

Not a cover-to-cover read, but a troubleshooting guide. A decent resource, especially for parents looking for ideas to transition from authoritarian parenting of their own childhood or the mainstream reward & punishment parenting to more attachment-focused discipline.

[Eirini Kefalianou]

Το βιβλίο είχε μερικά χρήσιμες πληροφορίεςς, συμβουλές και υποδείξεις, που όμως χάνονταν στην απέραντολογία της συγγραφέως. Επίσης μου φαινόταν ότι πολλές φορές ξεχνούσε πως ότι λειτουργεί για τον μικρόκοσμο της δικής της οικογένειας, δεν αποτελεί οικουμενική αλήθεια.

[Taryn]

I thought this book was pretty worthless. Aside from a fairly interesting section on child psychology, she doesn't really say anything of any use whatsoever. She mostly keeps repeating that spanking and punishment don't work but doesn't really give any really specific tools to use as discipline.
Plus, there is a whole section in the back that she spends justifying why children should be allowed to watch tv and play video games (yikes!) and actually mentions several times throughout the book how she reorganizes her family time around her kids tv watching. She also says that ice cream is a healthy option for a snack. Ummm, hello? Is this the type of person you want to take parenting advice from? I decided no.

[Marcia]

some good ideas...too lenient in some areas for my liking...ie she says in one part that she put away all competitive games including board games during the ages of 3-7 because children aren't good at losing and it's too frustrating for them...Hello that's why you play games, as an opportunity to teach.turn taking and how not to be a sore loser. Should we not play tag, because heaven forbid we get caught. I just have higher expectations...she basically doesn't want to make children uncomfortable or have real consequences ever...that's not realistic in my opinion. The world isn't a fair place, we don't always win and there are very serious consequences for our actions after the age of 12. Mommy won't be able to protect child from these things. It's delusional to raise a child that protected from reality. Love them yes, be don't create an unrealistic world... Just my opinion.

[Aspasia]

Great approaches to parenting, discipline, and positive reinforcement. Although I read this for a book club I'm sure I'll refer to it over and over again. Covers birth through age 19.

Warning: This is a self-published book with some grammatical and spelling errors. Be forewarned!

[Heather]

First book to intro me to positive parenting, and for that my gratitude is infinite. I went from believing that spanking was just a fact of life, how you were supposed to raise kids, to realizing I can have a peaceful, fun, harmonious home.
I do not have children yet, and this is actually a blessing-- that I learned of this before having kids-- because I am practicing on my two nephews.
I already have completely gotten rid of even the THOUGHT of spanking while babysitting them, so much so that I was only reminded by somebody else of the idea.
This is among my favorite books to recommend to people to introduce them to how radically peaceful your house and parenting can be.

[Joelle]

some good info, but nothing really earth-shattering.

[Raji]

I really liked the review of this book and interview with the author in the lastest API newsletter so bought the book. Is definitely a very AP book and most mainstreamers will roll their eyeballs at it. This is not for them! I have read most of it and it resonates with me. Sometimes easier said than done, to follow precisely, but it is something to strive for. Thankfully I have been blessed with children who do not test me often. This book reminds me that when they do, there is an underlying reason for it, and how to deal with it without blowing my stack :) Some of the techniques in here I have already figured out, like time-ins instead of time-outs. It is a good complement to Playful Parenting.

[Michelle]

While no parenting book can please everyone, this one is my go-to. I believe in peaceful parenting: kids should be treated respectfully and given loving, secure, stable homes. I believe my role is not only to nurture, but to build a self-reliant child who's responsible and capable of tasks fitting his age.

Fans of Dr. Sears and attachment parenting will get the message of this book right off the bat.

If you are just looking to add to your list of strategies or understand child development a little better, this is a good choice, too. Even teachers will get something from her exhaustive list of problem-solving strategies (my 2 year old bites, my 5 year old whines, my 9 year old tattles...) listed by age group.

[Erin]

I did like this book. I am not sure if I got the whole 135 tools. I thought she brought up some good not so common common sense ideas. I think I can sum it up in every kid is different and don't be a hypocrite. Like any book of this nature it was of course repetitive...that is to be expected. She frequently brings up anecdotal evidence so not a lot of real research. Even though I am sure this sounds like a negative review, I do think she had some good ideas.

[Kflikkema]

This book reinforced my beliefs and encouraged me to continue with the parenting practices that made sense to me. It also helped me to discover where some of my own personal issues stem from - the way I was disciplined as a child - and has helped me on my personal healing journey.

[Cat]

Got some ideas from this book. I find these kind of books I pick and choose what seems to make sense and what suits our family. Like I said I found some useful ideas in this one and would recommend it as useful to anyone struggling with parenting and discipline.

[Gervy]

Despite the fact it's taken me most of the year to get through this - parenting books don't tend to be page-turners - I did find this useful. It's full of mostly practical strategies for disciplining/teaching children and I expect to refer to it again.

[Stephanie]

I thought it was filled with great advice- read it when my daughter was under 1 but I am pretty sure it is aimed towards children who are much older. I hope to read it again someday or use it as a reference as she grows.

[Kit]

I loved the information on anger, both children's anger (to help remind me) and parental anger. Definitely read this book at the right time.

[Lauren]

Great ideas, great info, but almost too much info, too many options for every age and stage.

[Tasha]

Lots of useful tips, and clearly laid out by age groups that make sense.

[Vasilis]

Ένα χρήσιμο εγχειρίδιο για γονείς ώστε να καταλάβουν την συμπεριφορά του παιδιού. Στην βιβλιοθήκη θα είναι σε προσβάσιμο σημείο γιατί θα χρειαστεί να ανατρέχω συχνά σε αυτό.