POSITIVE DISCIPLINE

Abintra Parent Education:  Building Your Toolbox

Children don't arrive in parent's lives with a handbook or an owner's manual.  Throughout a child's life, parents have to find resources to help them become the best parents they can be.  With the help of Positive Discipline methodology, Abintra staff and faculty help parents craft positive, productive responses to their child or children throughout all stages of development.  Abintra staff members work with parents to create their own toolbox and handbook.

Using Positive Discipline as a consistent tool, Abintra provides adult caregivers – guides, administrators, and parents – with a common language and a common framework to use with children.  Popular Positive Discipline classes, which are offered throughout the year and address a variety of stages of childhood development, give parents a better understanding of the classroom language at Abintra, provide tools for effective messaging, and build strong patterns of communication within families.

Molly Henry

All Positive Discipline coursework at Abintra is led by Molly Henry, Abintra's Human Growth & Development/Parent Program Coordinator (molly.henry@abintra.org).  Molly is a Certified Positive Discipline Trainer and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Vanderbilt University.  She is also a mother of two with a deep passion for parenting.

Molly has led Positive Discipline classes for parents and teachers throughout Middle Tennessee since 2001.  Molly is also available to Abintra parents for individual coaching if a family is interested in working on specific issues. . (Visit Molly's blog, "Parenting From Within."  

What is Positive Discipline?
Like Montessori education, Positive Discipline is based on respect and trust in the child.  Positive Discipline equips parents with practical parenting tools, including using limited choices, encouragement and positive reinforcement of appropriate behaviors, use of natural consequences to teach lessons, and the search for solutions through community or family meetings.  This discipline philosophy is based largely on the principles developed by Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikers, which have been explained thoroughly in a series of books by Jane Nelsen, Ed.D. Positive Discipline is part of the fabric of daily life at Abintra, and is carried out by all staff members through very practical means.