Positive Discipline

The Classic Guide to Helping Children Develop Self-Discipline, Responsibility, Cooperation, and Problem-Solving Skills

By: Jane Nelsen EdD

Narrated by: Jane Nelsen

For 25 years, Positive Discipline has been the gold standard reference for grown-ups working with children. Now Jane Nelsen, distinguished psychologist, educator, and mother of seven, has written a revised and expanded edition.

The key to positive discipline is not punishment, she tells us, but mutual respect. Nelsen coaches parents and teachers to be both firm and kind, so that any child - from a three-year-old toddler to a rebellious teenager - can learn creative cooperation and self-discipline with no loss of dignity. Inside you'll discover how to:

• Bridge communication gaps
• Defuse power struggles
• Avoid the dangers of praise
• Enforce your message of love
• Build on strengths, not weaknesses
• Hold children accountable with their self-respect intact
• Teach children not what to think but how to think
• Win cooperation at home and at school
• Meet the special challenge of teen misbehavior

©1981, 1987, 1996, 2006 Jane Nelsen (P)2007 Jane Nelsen

Critic reviews

"It is not easy to improve a classic book, but Jane Nelson has done so in this revised edition. Packed with updated examples that are clear and specific, Positive Discipline shows parents exactly how to focus on solutions while being kind and firm. If you want to enrich your relationship with your children, this is the book for you." (Sal Severe, author of How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too!)

Powerful principles

The ideas seem so obviously true but are also so rarely practiced in most parenting

Committed to Mastery of Positive Discipline

My adopted daughter’s preschool Montessori teacher recommended this book to “nip in the bud” some of her negative behavior. I read the book & downloaded some charts from the website. Somewhere, packed away, I have positive discipline daily cards to help apply the principles Now that my daughter is 8 and we’re headed into a psych evaluation because of escalated negative behavior (possible ODD with destructive, violent outbursts and self-harm) during COVID 19 remote learning, as I re-listened to the audio book, I wonder how different our remote learning “hell” experience would have been if I had mastered positive discipline when she was 3. But I’m going to get a binder and go back through the book and write out the answers to all the end-of-chapter questions, start family meetings, use the daily reminder cards, and look for an online Positive Parenting support group. For us, my mastery of Positive Parenting is a must. Grateful for all the tools!

Excellent insight

Every parent should read this book to have a peaceful, effective and fulfilling parenting path.

Love the content — not the voice

I truly enjoyed the content of the book. I am an elementary school teacher and mother of a toddler and baby, so I can definitively see how these tactics are effective.

I gave this book a 3/5 star review on Performance because it was difficult for me to get used to the author’s voice. It was so nasally and the reading was a bit choppy. I spent the first quarter of the book distracted by thinking she should have delegated the audiobook reading to someone else with a more pleasant voice and tonality.

Nevertheless, I eventually got used to it, I enjoyed the content, and I will be listening to the book again.

Great content, terrible audible to follow along with physical book

The content is great and I really appreciate all the examples. The issue is it's impossible to follow along with physical book if you're using the audible as I am for a positive parenting class. I'm a working parent and I only have so much time so I listen on my drive. The physical book has 12 chapters. The audible has 182. Yes, 182. I've listened to a dozen Audibles and this is the first I've seen with even 100 chapters. Whoever created the chapters did a terrible job. The audible is about to go into the chapter on class meetings which I want to skip over as it's not relevant for me and go to Family meetings chapter but what chapter in the audible do I need to skip to? Your guess is as good as mine. I hope whoever is responsible for creating the chapters reads this and adjusts the audible so one can use it to follow along with the book.

Insightful and Knowledgable

This book was recommended to me because I was interested in the Montessori method. I adore so much content in this book; the emphasis on empathy and respect is exactly how I'd like to raise my child. I bought a physical copy so my husband and I can reference it. I appreciate how it covers a variety of ages in its examples, from toddlers to teenagers.

positive discipline

This book was very helpful advice & knowledge. It really made so much sense, a really big help to our family.

Unique tool to construct a healthy family!!

Jane Nelson explains with detail how to use positive discipline in practice. Full of examples and tools she walks us through the positive parents theory.

Precious book with great parenting advice

I really enjoyed listening to positive discipline. I can say that it will be part of my parenting journey from here onwards.
Thanks for writing!

Terrible audio

The book itself is really great. The narrator is terrible! I have listened to over 70 audiobooks over a wide range of topics I drive an hour each way to work and I pass the time with audio books. However this narrator has a “wet” raspy voice. It is unbearable I ended up getting a hard copy version. This what happens when authors narrates there own books they ruin it.

I would rather pour ice cold water in my ears every day for a year than listen to this audiobook for one hour.