What is your Discipline Style?

When I got pregnant with my son, I was pretty young and naive. OK I was stupid. I thought being a parent was going to be easy. Why wouldn’t it be? I was in school to be a teacher, I spent my teenage years teaching children how to swim…I basically spent my entire life with kids. How hard could having one of my own be? I thought I knew my discipline style.

I know. But in my defense, I was 22 and STUPID!

Having kids has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. When they were little it was exhausting and I remember thinking “if we can just get past this, it’ll be easier. WRONG. Now that they are seven and nine, I find myself having to reevaluate everything I do. One minute one discipline strategy works, the next minute it doesn’t and it’s like I have no clue what to do with my own kids.

*The following product was provided to me for the purpose of this review. No compensation was received. All opinions and stories are my own.

When I was taking classes for elementary education, one of the things they drilled into your head is to focus on the positive. I have noticed that over the years, I haven’t been focusing on that positive with my kids. Instead, I devise plan after plan on how to discipline them when they do something wrong. And guess what, it’s not working.

That’s where the Awesome Deck of Awesome comes in.

The Awesome Deck of Awesome (ADoA) is a positive reinforcement tool for children (of all ages). It’s a fun way to bring awesomeness into a child’s life and teach them valuable lessons about planning, earning and saving without resorting to sweets or money.

The ADoA can be used as currency in your ‘family economy’, where values can be set by you together with your children. In addition, the cards themselves are cool for kids to trade and collect. Each card is unique and has an awesome message to reinforce positive behavior and motivate kids.

So how do you know if the Awesome Deck of Awesome is for you and your family? Simple. Can you say yes to any of the following:

• I believe that a child’s AWESOMENESS needs to be rewarded. Often.

• I believe that positive reinforcement is more productive than negative reinforcement which is itself more productive than punishment.

• I believe that motivating with money or candy may lead to values or behavior which distract from the positive message I’m trying to instill.

• I believe the smile on a child’s face when you tell them they’re AWESOME is big enough for both of you.

If you can say yes, then this deck of cards is for you. My kids are obsessed with cards right now. Pokemon cards, basketball cards, football cards…it doesn’t matter, they like cards. Plus they are competitive, so they like to get more than each other. A little competition never hurt anyone, right?!?

So tell me…what is your discipline style in your house?