Real Talk For Real Teachers By Conscious Discipline

Conscious Discipline is intended for all children and adults. However, it can be especially powerful for children with exceptionalities, including autism. The practice of Conscious Discipline creates structure and safety, builds connection with even the most relationship-resistant children, and helps develop executive skills in children who may have deficits in that area. In this episode, Master I...

In the not-so-distant past, children with behavior struggles were viewed as having a deficit. Interventions were a one-way street intended to “fix” children. In many cases, the response to unwanted behaviors was to withhold safety and connection from the children who most desperately needed it. Unsurprisingly, this approach was ineffective. Response to Intervention (RTI) originated from the specia...

Conscious Discipline is not just for schools, teachers, and parents. It’s for any adult who wants stronger, healthier relationships. The core values of Conscious Discipline—like connection, communication, and empathy—are key to any relationship, including marriage. In this episode, Conscious Discipline Master Instructor Kim Hughes opens her heart and home to share how Conscious Discipline has impr...

26% of children ages 0-4 have experienced trauma. For these children, a secure emotional attachment is life-changing. However, building connections with children of trauma isn’t easy. It requires empathy, patience, and persistence. When teachers don’t know how to respond to challenging behaviors, their solutions often make the problem worse. These children need to be included, not excluded. Additi...

What supports are available for helping foster parents manage the challenging behaviors that often arise with foster children and children who have experienced trauma? Have you ever had a child in your care you just weren’t sure how to help? In the United States there are over 420,00 children in foster care. These children have experienced severe stress and trauma in their lives. Statistically the...

Conscious Discipline is not a program; it’s a practice that asks adults to make a significant mindset shift. Implementation of Conscious Discipline is a process that begins with experiencing this shift, then building skills, and finally adding structures that support our practice of the skills. Administrators coaching teachers in Conscious Discipline must recognize and accept that different teache...

In the United States, many of us have now lived through a decade of high-stakes testing. This testing costs an average of $1.7 billion annually per state, and students take about 18 major tests each year. The pressure on students, teachers, and schools is intense. Research shows that about 40 percent of students experience test anxiety. Studies also indicate that testing interferes with the studen...

Many people believe that Conscious Discipline is an early childhood program. In reality, Conscious Discipline is a life practice appropriate for all ages. It’s a mindset shift and skillset upgrade that we use to manage our thoughts, emotions, and behavior. This allows us to set and achieve goals and solve problems or conflicts. Social emotional learning has no age limit—Conscious Discipline can an...

Have you noticed that the same children repeatedly receive the same consequences, often with no significant change in behavior? This is because most people have confused consequences with punishment. In Conscious Discipline, we differentiate consequences from punishment in very significant ways. The first six skills of Conscious Discipline build an essential foundation that allows the seventh skil...

Today’s teachers must juggle more initiatives, responsibilities and challenges than ever before. For this reason, introducing Conscious Discipline to faculty/staff as a new principal can be difficult. Staff must recognize the need for social and emotional learning, be willing to view children with positive intent and love and commit to the process of transformational change. This is an ongoing jou...

1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are victims of domestic violence. Each year, 5 million children in the United States witness domestic violence in their homes. These traumatic experiences profoundly impact children, making them fearful, anxious and always on guard. They may feel worthless, powerless and starved for affection and approval. Children affected by domestic violence, trauma and chronic stres...

Corporal punishment is punishment that is intended to cause a person physical pain. Historically, the idea was that pain, degradation, and humiliation could deter an individual from committing similar offenses in the future. Today, corporal punishment is increasingly viewed as a violation of children’s human rights on the international front. There is also a growing body of evidence supporting the...

Teachers are exposed to many new initiatives that are asked of them on a daily basis, some they agree with and some they don’t. Some of these initiatives are viewed as meaningful, while others are considered inconvenient. For administrators and school leaders, it’s important to be sensitive to these viewpoints when introducing Conscious Discipline. Conscious Discipline is a transformational change...

Peer coaching is a powerful way for teachers to pay it forward. Whatever you offer to others, you strengthen in yourself. As a peer coach you learn to listen nonjudgmentally, notice successes, and celebrate them. As you share your skills and talents, you learn to be more conscious and intentional in your own life. Sometimes, though, there’s a lack of willingness to coach or be coached. This is the...

The end of the school year can be a challenging time when difficult behaviors pop up—even in the most connected classrooms! For students, summer can be an exciting and unpredictable time, and next year may be an anxiety-provoking unknown. The routines that anchor their classroom lives with predictability and safety are soon to be left behind, as are the rituals that have connected class members al...

Research confirms the early years (ages 0-5) are a time for rapid brain growth and development. Research also indicates that stimulation and interaction with loving, caring adults – not toys, screens or academics – are critical to early brain development. So, how do we impact a system and a society that has grown away from what is developmentally appropriate for the sake of academics and convenien...

School violence has left educators with unique challenges in providing for students’ physical and emotional safety. During lockdown drills and events, it isn’t enough to simply follow safety protocol; we must also address the social and emotional fallout from these stressful experiences. It is essential that we intentionally create lockdown procedures that revolve around safety, self-regulation an...

Episodes of school violence, including mass shootings, have left educators with unique challenges in providing for students’ physical and emotional safety. They’ve also left parents with the added challenge of explaining these events and creating a sense of safety for children who sometimes feel unsafe at school. Each day teachers and students enter their work and learning environments with a cert...

School violence leaves teachers and schools with unique challenges in providing for students’ physical and emotional safety. The goal of active shooter drills and school lockdowns is to keep schools safe, but teachers often feel under-equipped to manage the sense of danger, anxiety, uncertainty and stress that occurs during and after these events. Classroom teachers are charged with unique respons...

School violence leaves administrators and schools with unique challenges in providing for students’ physical and emotional safety. Active shooter drills and school lockdowns are common, mandated events. The goal of these drills is to keep schools safe, but their emotional side-effects include increased anxiety, uncertainty and stress (on top of the “normal” levels of stress teachers and students a...

Family privilege is a collection of strengths and supports children gain through healthy, caring primary relationships (Seita, J, 2014 - https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1038836 ). Many children lack the full benefit of these strengths and supports due to factors like insecure attachment, homelessness, uncertain home life, substance abuse, trauma and neglect. The School Family in Conscious Discipline is...

Socialization is a process by which a person learns to be a member of a group or community. Families and educators have the task of socializing children into the collective in a healthy way in order to sustain ourselves as a society. “Us” and “them” socialization (racism, sexism, have vs have not, good kid vs bad kid classroom culture, etc.) impedes healthy socialization. It can prime the excluded...

With so many models for creating change, how do you decide which one is best for your school? Do you want lasting change or a Band-Aid approach? Do you have what it takes to create a transformational change in your classroom, school or district? Traditional change is doing the same thing you’ve been doing, but doing it better, faster, and cheaper. Transitional change makes small changes in behavio...

Some days, even the best parents feel at a loss for how to respond to a child’s behavior: the right words won’t come, the child won’t behave and there just has to be a better way! Dr. Becky Bailey, the creator of Conscious Discipline, says discipline is something we develop within children, not something we do to them. Much of our parenting is based on the idea that it’s our job to have the perfec...

Asking for help is one of the most powerful tools we possess in life. It allows us to learn, think critically and problem solve, and it allows others to do the same while also being of service. “How do I…?” is a special quarterly episode that provides a forum for podcast listeners to reach out for help. In this podcast, Dr. Bailey responds with helpful Conscious Discipline-based approaches for: Ho...