Barbara Coloroso

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Barbara Coloroso

• The purpose and practice of discipline

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Barbara Coloroso

• Parent, teacher, and author
• International speaker recognized around the world
• Areas of specialty are parenting, teaching,
  school discipline, and non-violent conflict
  resolution
• Has written three best sellers, including Kids
  Are Worth It! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner
  Discipline, Parenting Through Crisis Helping
  Kids in Times of Loss, Grief, and Change, and
  The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander From
  Preschool to High School How Parents and
  Teachers Can Help Break the Cycle of Violence

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Barbara Coloroso

• because they are children and for no other
  reason they have dignity and worth simply because
  they are
• - Barbara Coloroso

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Barbara Coloroso

• Three main principles
• Kids are worth it
• I will not treat a child in a way I myself would
  not want to be treated
• If it works and leaves a childs and my own
  dignity intact, do it

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Barbara Coloroso

• Feels that helping students to make their own
  decisions and take responsibility for their
  actions is very important
• We need to influence our children, instead of
  controlling and making up their minds for them.
  Students must learn how to think not just what
  to think

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Barbara Coloroso

• Encouragement inspires try bringing these
  phrases into the classroom, through words or
  actions
• I believe in you
• I trust you
• I know you can handle this
• You are listened to
• You are cared for
• You are very important to me

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Barbara Coloroso

• Three types of schools, teachers, and families
• Brickwall very strict, use power to control
  children, use punishment, humiliation, threat,
  and bribes to make others follow their rules
• Jellyfish little structure, lax discipline, let
  children have their way teachers have little
  faith in students
• Backbone provide support and structure necessary
  for students to reason through problems and
  correct mistakes students learn to think and act
  independently

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Barbara Coloroso

• Three things are necessary for teachers to
• have good discipline
• Treat students with respect and dignity
• Give them a sense of positive power over their
  own lives
• Give them the opportunity to make decisions, take
  responsibility for their actions, and learn from
  their successes and mistakes

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Barbara Coloroso

• Discipline not punishment
• Punishment is adult orientated, requires judgment
  on the part of the adult, imposes power, arouses
  anger and resentment, and invites more conflict
• Take away skateboard, go to bed without supper,
  grounded, give toys away to charity does not
  teach children anything!
• Slap childs bottom while yelling you bad boy,
  dont you ever hit your little brother again

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Barbara Coloroso

• Discipline
• Shows kids what they have done
• Gives them ownership of the problem
• Gives them options for solving the problem
• Leaves their dignity intact
• Uses logical and realistic consequences
• Example A boy accidentally broke something on
  display in a museum on a school field trip.
  Instead of being punished, he was asked to write
  an apology letter to the museum, and replace the
  broken item

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Barbara Coloroso

• Using proper discipline does four things
• Shows students what they have done wrong
• Gives them ownership of the problems created
• Provides them ways to solve the resultant
  problems
• Leaves their dignity intact

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Barbara Coloroso

• discipline with authority, means to give life
  learning. Our goal as teachers is to give life
  to our childrens learning to instruct, to
  teach, to help them develop self-discipline an
  ordering of the self from the inside, not
  imposition from the outside.

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Barbara Coloroso

• Use the three Rs to help students take
  responsibility for their actions
• Restitution correcting any harm that was done
• Resolution identifying and correcting whatever
  caused the misbehaviour
• Reconciliation apologizing or otherwise healing
  the relationship with people who were hurt

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Barbara Coloroso

• Three types of misbehaviour
• Mistakes small errors made without intending to
  break the rules a learning opportunity
• Mischief intentional, but not serious, breaking
  of the rules
• Mayhem serious intentional misbehaviour, harmful
  to people and their property teachers need to
  apply the three Rs when this occurs

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Barbara Coloroso

• Natural Consequences
• If a situation is neither life threatening,
  morally threatening, nor unhealthy, let the
  natural consequence of what the student did give
  life to the childs learning
• Example If a child puts their shoes on the wrong
  feet, then their feet hurt (natural)

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Barbara Coloroso

• RSVP Four clues to reasonable consequences
• R is it reasonable?
• S is it simple?
• V is it valuable as a learning tool?
• P is it practical?
• Example If a child borrows a toy, and returns it
  broken, they must replace it with a new one

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Barbara Coloroso

• Inner Discipline
• Coloroso provides teachers a manageable approach
  to effective discipline. Her beliefs are
  humanistic and focused on preserving dignity and
  sense of self worth. Coloroso believes it is
  through experiences with these qualities that
  students develop inner-discipline

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Barbara Coloroso
We need to encourage members of this next
generation to become all that they can become,
not try to force them to become what we want them
to become. You and I cant even begin to dream
the dreams this next generation is going to
dream, or answer the questions that will be put
to them.
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Barbara Coloroso

• References these can all be found in the
  Nipissing Library
• Kids Are Worth It! Giving Your Child The Gift of
  Inner Discipline by Barbara Coloroso
• Discipline Winning at Teaching by Barbara
  Coloroso
• Building Classroom Discipline by C.M. Charles