Virtue-Based Restorative Discipline (Our Sunday Visitor)

In case you haven't noticed, at the end of each month I've been trying to highlight a book or product geared toward the homeschooling parent. It hasn't been an easy task, as this is a relatively new market. Luckily, good Catholic publishers like Our Sunday Visitor have some books that fit the bill and are ever-generous in allowing me to review their offerings. Today's review is for the book Virtue-Based Restorative Discipline, and while the target audience is not primarily homeschooling parents, I believe it contains some wisdom that can be applied in the home.

Virtue-Based Restorative Discipline is a book that advocates a different approach on behavior and discipline. As opposed to the tired methods of "carrot and/or stick," Lynne Lang introduces a different method - one based on teaching children virtue. The Virtue-Based Restorative Discipline (VBRD) model begins with helping children to grow spiritually by teaching them virtue. Then, when harm occurs (and it will occur), you look at the cause of harm or misbehavior and work on making amends. This is a completely different approach than "zero-tolerance," which simply advocates for suspension or expulsion of the bully without getting to the core of the bullying or working on repairing relationships between the children.

The VBRD model is ideal for Catholic schools for the following reason: "In public schools, if a child is marginalized, there are other places to go for acceptance: community-based extracurricular activities and church and neighborhood community events. In Catholic communities, however, if a child is marginalized or bullied at school, that same experience can spill over into sports teams and scout groups and even affect church attendance." Therefore, in order to make VBRD successful, you need community-wide cooperation, including parents, students, and staff, both at the school and at the church.

If you send your children to public school or choose to homeschool, this book is still a worthwhile read. It can also help with your parenting or even self-improvement. For example, I know I am guilty of gossip, negative humor, sarcasm, etc. However, I am trying to eliminate this so I don't pass it on to my son and his future siblings. This book gave practical actions to institute change, like being encouraging toward others, changing the subject when gossip arises, and paying people genuine compliments. I know it will be a struggle, but I know it will be worth it.

Though one could argue that the book is primarily directed at correcting bullying, the VBRD model is so much more. It has already shown great success in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. If given the chance it could work in your diocese as well. I plan on telling our Director of Religious Education about this book, and I would recommend this book to parents, teachers, principals, and school volunteers.

I received this book for free from Our Sunday Visitor in exchange for an honest review. If you found this review helpful, please click here and hit Yes!

Children's Corner: Winning the Discipline Debates

Today in Children's Corner, I'm going to review a book that one would normally classify as a "children's book." This isn't a story book or a book with a lot of pictures, but instead a book to help you be a better parent, which is beneficial for your children. Is it a stretch putting this book in the "Children's Corner?" Maybe, but it is here nonetheless.

Dr. Ray Guarendi is a clinical psychologist, author of numerous books on parenting, and a radio host of the show The Doctor Is In. Most importantly though, he is the father of ten. If anyone knows something about parenting and discipline, it's him.

Spanning 25 chapters, Winning the Discipline Debates walks a parent through common parental-child discipline scenarios, including temper tantrums, fighting siblings, and cell phone privileges, to name a few. Each discipline scenario is laid out in the form of a mini-play with roles. The children are cleverly named to illustrate the problem, i.e., Rip who won't get out of bed in the morning is named for Rip Van Winkle, and Tattalia is a tattler. You get the idea. He then walks you through a common problem and gives you examples of a poor way to discipline and better way to discipline. I thought I would hate this method of writing at first, but it grew on me.

The book is chronologically laid out in that it starts with kids ages 4-5 and builds up to a 16 year old. Yes, your child may exhibit discipline problems earlier or later than the ages of the the kids described in the book, but I think he did a masterful job targeting the common discipline problems for a typical age range. I really enjoyed reading this book as I could easily relate to it. I was able to look back on my childhood and see how I acted like most of these children at some point or another and also look at current peers and family members and see how they discipline compared to the book.

There is no manual on how to raise children. You'll make plenty of mistakes, especially with the first one as you are still learning how to be a parent. However, this 5 star book gives you a leg up on one of the harder aspects of parenting. Will you automatically become an awesome parent who never disciplines poorly from reading this book? No. Will you adopt every solution that Dr. Ray suggests in his book? Probably not. You will get solid gold advice and methods that have worked for him and others. This book was provided to me by Franciscan Media in exchange for an honest review.