There has been lots of discussion, pages, written and tears shed over the issues of disciplining our young children but none has been given more press than the topic of limits.

Should they be firm limits, soft limits, how much limit and what should we limit.

I am going to lay out for you what soft and firm limits actually are along with some examples.

Soft limits in parenting

• Does no ever really mean yes or something else? That’s soft.
• Do you ignore wrong misbehavior?
• Give unclear directions?
• Allow the children to bargain with you?
• Gives lots of bribes?
• Let them argue and debate rules?
• Allow different types of parenting from both spouses? (if you are married)
• Don’t follow through

Some examples would be if you said some of these things to your children.

“Can’t you try to be nice”

“Can’t you ssee I’m on the telephone”?

“I don’t like your attitude”

If you allow them to walk away from what you told them to do, or you clean up after them and ignore their misbehavior than these are what one would call soft limits.

Firm limits in parenting

When no really means no.

• When the focus of the message is on the behaviors that you don’t like
• When you are direct and specific on what you want
• You use a normal , calm tone of voice
• Mete out consequences not as threats but as natural result of their behaviors
• Supporting your words with actions

Some example may be

“Stop hitting your brother right now”

“You can play by the rules or you can find some other game”

“Be home by 6:00″

If you give timeouts for children who hit and remove ices from child who is eating it in the wrong place or you remove toys when children don’t want to pick them up, then you are employing firm limits.

One of the best books I ever read on discipline was Setting Limits by Robert Mackenzie and you can find lots more on how to set limits by reading his book.

I am going to give you some basic tips on how you can set a positive  tone in the preschool classroom by showing you some of the different ways you can phrase the same thing.

1. Notice details of a child’s behavior instead of saying things like good boy and good girl. You can say   You did a good job…You’re a good cleaner…That was hard but you did it anyway. These comments are less global and more specific and make the child feel good about the specific thing he did.
2. Don’t tell the child that he or she is a bad boy or girl instead can say ….I’m sorry that is not allowed; Or  Come let us try to find something  else to do. One can be firm without being punitive.
3. Saying you’re cute or wonderful is not helpful either. Saying Your hair looks really nice today or I really enjoyed working with you…or    You did a very nice thing to your friend by giving her your chair goes a lot further in building up self esteem because  it is recognizing something they did and had control over as opposed to things like their looks that they have no control over.
4. Do not encourage competition by showing off one child’s work over another. The child complimented will feel just as good if complimented in private while the child hearing it will feel inferior.
5. When a child is doing some kind of kids crafts or other artwork then  instead of saying That’s beautiful, you can notice what they did in the artwork and comment on it like I see you used red and yellow and blue or You used a lot of paint and moved your arm strongly. This makes the child notice the work she did herself and feel good that someone else really noticed what she did.
6. Get down with the children physically when you really need to get a point across. It is a lot easier listening to an adult when they are at your level as opposed to towering above you.

Just try to implement some of these examples and you will be setting a positive, comfortable tone in your classroom that will help avoid discipline problems from the outset.