Discipline for Smart People    

The site is referred to as “for smart people” because this type of person understands that no one can coerce another person into changing one’s mind and that the most effective approach for changing behavior is to induce the person to influence himself.

This approach has two fundamental characteristics. The first is that stress—oftentimes associated with discipline—is significantly reduced. The second is that external manipulators, such as rewards for appropriate behavior, are not used because they are counterproductive to promoting responsibility. Similarly, threats and punishments are not imposed. Punishments, be they referred to as “logical” or “natural,” are based on the theory that the person needs to be harmed to be taught, to be hurt in order to learn. Most people would prefer not to punish someone they care about, but they simply do not know how discipline without the use of punishments. The site shows how to promote responsible behavior by using 21st century approaches espoused by such authorities as Stephen Covey, W. Edwards Deming, and William Glasser.

I hope that you will enjoy “Discipline for Smart People” as I share ideas of how to promote responsibility, promote learning, increase effectiveness, and improve relationships.

Please see the “Topics” on the right side bar for the categories of my posts.

For a more complete understanding, free and valuable information, and a free subscription to my monthly newsletter, please visit my home site.

Marv Marshall

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Posted In: About this Site On: September 12, 2007: 3:46 pm: By Marvin Marshall

The truth assumption simply assumes that I am right and that the other person is wrong. This simple assumption causes endless grief.

This error in thinking, although perhaps natural, is profoundly counterproductive.

Moving from certainty to curiosity can resolve difficult situations. Instead of asking yourself, “How can the person think that?!” ask yourself, “I wonder what information they have that I don’t?” or “I wonder what prompts that thinking?”

Instead of asking, “How can they be so irrational?” ask, “How can I see the world so that their view makes sense?”

Certainty locks us out of the other person’s perception; curiosity lets us in.

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Posted In: Increasing Effectiveness On: September 29, 2007: 7:17 pm: By Marvin Marshall

My October 30 seminar in Omaha sponsored by the University of Nebraska is now online.

Information can be downloaded from here. Look in the upper righthand corner under the “Upcoming Conferences” sidebar.

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Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: September 28, 2007: 8:52 am: By Marvin Marshall

The September 27, 2007 issue of USA Today carried an extensive article on the teenage brain. Two items from the article deserve special attention.

The first is a study finding that when kids showed resistance to peer pressure, the prefrontal cortex thickened, and areas of the brain showed more connections. This illustrates an association between brain function and structure and resistance to peer influence. One of the prime advantages of teaching the Marvin Marshall Hierarchy is to help young people understand the difference between external motivation (referred to as level C - cooperation/conformity ) and internal motivation (referred to as level D - democracy) Here is a further description.

The second item states that more than the teen brain is at issue. “It’s important for parents to be aware of this developmental phase, but the bigger issue is as a society, we need to re-evaluate our values. The nurturing we are doing falls short of the teenagers needs.” Too many parents have the misconception that to raise healthy and responsible children, young people need to be protected from anything that could impinge negatively on their self-esteem. Examples abound, such as all children being given rewards just for being a member of a team, scores in games no longer kept so there will not be any “losers,” and everyone’s being a “winner” so as not to have any youngster feel bad.

This misconconception has given way to what is commonly referred to as “helicopter parents”—those who hover over their children in an attempt to protect the young from having them experience ANYTHING negative. In the process, such parents fail to practice a critical principal for promoting healthy, responsible citizens—namely, “Do not do things for young people which they can do for themselves.”

The greater exposure young people have to understanding the concepts of internal and external motivation (especially peer influence) and the more they experience the “ups and downs” of life, the more they will be able to handle major challenges without resorting to external agents—be they alcohol, drugs, or victimhood thinking.

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Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: : 8:07 am: By Marvin Marshall

A writer for Best Life Magazine asked me how to respond to the following question: “My daughter wants to get a tattoo. How can I persuade her she’ll live to regret it?”

I responded that the most effective approach is to induce the daughter to influence herself. The key to this approach is asking reflective questions and prompting the daughter to evaluate. I gave the following suggestions:

“Project ahead five years. Is the short term fun worth the long-term frustration when you want it removed?”

“How about making a list of all the advantages and the disadvantages and then comparing them!”

“Remembering that the emotion of making the decision will not outlast the emotion of being sorry if you want it removed, what are the consequences if you decide to remove it?”

We so often want to protect our children for something we as parents believe that they will regret. But people learn by their decisions. As long the decision is not life-threatening or harmful, the most effective approach is for the parent to allow the problem and its consequences to be her daughter’s. In essence, the situation becomes a problem to the parent when the parent labels it a problem.

The most effective approach may not get what the parent desires. Is that so critical?

The parent will find that the best chance of the daughter’s not getting a tattoo and retaining good relationships is by (1) letting the daughter know that the parent will love her whatever she chooses (after the parent lets the daughter know that the parent detests her having a tattoo), (2) by the parent’s empowering her with the choice (after expressing the parent’s desires), and (3) by the parent’s prompting the daughter to reflect on the short-term peer influence of external motivation versus the long-term decision of internal motivation of not succumbing to such peer influence.

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Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: September 27, 2007: 8:08 am: By Marvin Marshall

For U.S. business leaders to convince legislators that they have the answers to educational challenges is not only inaccurate, it can even be considered dishonest. To assume that all children can be treated as cars going down an assembly line is false and naive.

The root causes for problems in government, business, and education are all different. Yet, one often hears that if education were run more like a business, many of the problems of education would be eliminated. This infers that business does everything right and education has it wrong. The numerous examples where businesses display poor practices are simply too numerous to fill an entire book. The proof of this statement is the plethora of business books topping best seller lists every week.

Business is so different from education that in my book the only place I use the term, “work,” is in the index where the word, “homework,” is referred to as “home tasks” or “home asssigments.” This is a deliberate attempt to differentiate effort in learning from effort in employment.

The entire epilogue of the book is how business is so different from learning that the two should not even be used in the same sentence. The opening paragraph concludes, “Using a business model for learning is a practice that has been described by the comic strip character Dagwood Bumstead: “You know, that makes a lot of sense if you don’t think about it.”

The Epilogue of the book contains a thorough discussion and comparison on this topic.

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Posted In: Promoting Learning On: September 26, 2007: 11:14 am: By Marvin Marshall

See the Topics on the right side bar for the categories of my posts.

To gain greater understanding, please read this first.

To change behavior of a young person, treat the youngster as if the person were already what you want the person to become.

For example, if your daughter is shy, rather than sending messages of her difficulties with her own social needs, respond to her as if she were verbal, popular, and socially confident. Some children need the confidence of others in themselves before their own confidence grows. If you communicate that the person has the power to encounter the situation—instead of trying to solve it for the youngster—the person will learn effective ways to do so with her or his own resources.

Parents cannot fix problems they don’t own. The problem invariably resides with the person’s self-talk to the situation. Talking to the child in empowering ways can do much to help the youngster change his or her own self-talk. The more you send messages that the persons is competent in the area under question, the greater the chance of the youngster’s changing her or his own self-talk.

One key to this success is to resist evaluating the young person as the person is and have a mental picture of how you would like the person to be. A positive vision will always bring more success than a negative one.

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Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: September 25, 2007: 8:05 am: By Marvin Marshall

See the Topics on the right side bar for the categories of my posts

If this is your first visit to my web log, please read this first.

When I was growing up in Hollywood, California, the radio station I listened to most often was KFWB where Al Jarvis was a disk jockey. I quote what he would say very often, “It’s the little things in life that mean the most to all of us.”

As I grew older, I continually wondered at the truth of this wisdom. Although the brain conceives ideas, it is the small personal things that we have a tendency to think about most often. A small gesture on our part can make a lasting effect. On more than one occasion people have told me how they felt welcomed to a new group which they were joining simply because one member of the group personally welcomed them.

Creating a small gesture can have a major impact. So, rather than leaving a small gesture to chance, think about what you can do to create a lasting, positive memory.

A fact of life is that people are going to pass judgment on you. You can’t stop that from happening, but you can influence that decision.

Here are two simple questions that can leave you with more information and leave the other person with good feelings:

(1) Ask the person what the person wants to be called. As Dale Carnegie stated in his classic, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” a person’s name is to that person the most beautiful sound in any language.”

(2) Ask the person where he or she is from. This question will immediately prompt the person to share, start a conversation, and enhance your understanding of the stranger. A bonding will accrue instantaneously.

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Posted In: Improving Relationships On: September 24, 2007: 8:11 am: By Marvin Marshall

For the first time in many years I will be presenting public seminars.They are listed below:

October 30 - Omaha, Nebraska
http://conferences.unl.edu

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November 27 - Long Beach, California

November 29 - Los Angeles, California

December 3 - Covina, California

December 5 - Anaheim, California

December 7 - Pasadena, California
http://www.oci-sems.com/

See my complete speaker calendar.

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Posted In: Discipline without Stress On: September 20, 2007: 10:58 am: By Marvin Marshall

Here is how a school librarian who knows the Marvin Marshall approach uses it to have students return books. Before adopting this smart approach, the librarian would send out overdue library notices on three different colors:The first color was a notice that the book was overdue.

The second colored notice announced that a book was really late and that the next notice would be a detention.

The third was a notice that the book was three weeks overdue and that the student had to serve a detention.

The process had turned into a bit of a joke with students who learned that the first two notices really didn’t count. The librarian was sending out more than 200 notices each week.

This is what she wrote in the announcements with a smart approach:
“What would a responsible student do today to renew or return a book before overdue notices tomorrow?”

The only problem with the approach was that the librarian was overwhelmed with students returning or renewing their books that day.

She sent almost no late notices the next day. Wow!

If we would only remember that positivity, choice, and reflection are less stressful and more effective than older, negative, and threatening approaches!

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Posted In: Promoting Responsibility On: : 10:47 am: By Marvin Marshall