Peace Discipline
Children need to feel safe with us
When the only tool one has is a hammer,
one tends to treat everything as if it’s a nail.
Peace discipline started in 2004 and ran for 16 years as a series of workshops teaching non-violent discipline options for parents, teachers and others caring for children. The workshop content will now be made freely available on this website and in videos on the Peace Discipline YouTube channel.
The Peace Discipline toolkit is underpinned by systematic research of the available evidence on non-violent discipline options, while examples and stories (see videos) are based on the experiences of parents and teachers living and working in the diverse cultural context of South Africa.
On this website you will find information about non-violent discipline tools, some research on these, and information about videos and coaching.
The toolkit section lists some non-violent discipline tools for parents and teachers with brief explanations. To find out more about them, and hear examples and stories of their use, subscribe to the Peace Discipline YouTube channel where short videos are regularly uploaded. You can find some examples of these in the videos section of this website.
Note. The toolkit gives a number of options likely to be useful for parents and teachers, but there are more! To find out about other useful evidence-supported tools, have a look at the summary in the research section.
“Toolkit robbing”: When well-meaning people advise against non-violent discipline tools such as praise, reward, distraction or time-out saying they will be damaging to children, when in fact there is no evidence to confirm this. This is a concern because it tends to paralyse parents and teachers rather than empowering them. The information on this website is underpinned by an overview of 223 systematic reviews covering nearly 4000 studies. This research was initiated to meet a need for reliable information experienced working in the field of non-violent discipline, and to provide reliable information for others. It is hoped that this will help parents and teachers to use non-violent discipline tools with confidence, giving children not only the love but the boundaries they need for optimal development.
Coaching (subject to session availability and time-zone compatibility), for parents, teachers and others who work with or care for children: Karen offers a space for adults to reflect on their approach to children, to understand them better, and find strategies to deal with their challenging behavior. Caring for children is a tough job, and sometimes parents or teachers need a space for themselves, more than they need to talk about the children. Children are the direct beneficiaries of the adults in their lives caring for themselves in this way. You can attend as an individual or parenting couple, and sessions can be online, or in person if you are in Cape Town.
MSocSc; HDE (UCT); Coaching (SACAP)
Karen has a background as a school counsellor and teacher, and is also a parent. She now works independently, coaching and running workshops for parents, teachers and child-care workers. She completed several years of research on non-violent discipline options as a psychology masters at UCT.
Content: Karen Quail
Website: Mikha Davids
Research: Karen Quail (principal researcher)
Catherine Ward (supervisor)
Ayabonga Timakwe (research assistant)
Stijn de Leeuw (research assistant)
Tamsyn Naylor (research assistant)
