Positive Discipline Hits Hard

I am nearing the end of the Positive Discipline book, and there is a section on lifestyle priorities. It was not a fun read. Taking a break from the really enticing idea of setting up some shared decision making and ownership of the family’s routines, issues, and plans, this chapter set forth four lifestyle priorities for the adults to grapple with. They are comfort, control, pleasing, and superiority. As any tool does, this one has its issues, but the squirming I did in the descriptions of control and even more for superiority made it clear that I needed to pay attention to these two. In control, the worst fear is humiliation, criticism, and the unexpected. In superiority, it is meaninglessness and unimportance. I read more about both, and both resonated with some of my challenges. It was nice that in the midst of all of this there were ways to channel these priorities for positive outcomes as well as ways to redirect or back off from them as well. I am just glad to have read through it. I’ll come back to it but not right away.