Positive Discipline at Tricks Gym

An interview by Jane Nelsen

What a delight to visit Tricks Gym in Folsom and Roseville, California! From the moment you walk into a Tricks Gym and see bunnies painted all over the walls, or walk into the castle mural room, you will wish you were a child somewhere between the ages of one and eighteen. Since that is impossible, you will be glad you can enroll your children. Tricks Gym is now a franchise, so it won't be long before this delightful experience will be available to children all over the country.

What makes Tricks Gym so special, besides the decorative walls? Owners Barbara Jo and Vern Taylor have created an atmosphere where children are treated with dignity and respect, and where they experience large doses of encouragement while they are developing their gymnastic skills. To help create this encouraging atmosphere, all employees read the book Positive Discipline as part of their training. I was so fascinated when I heard this that I wanted to know more. Following is an interview with Barbara and Vern:

Jane: Why do you have all your teachers read Positive Discipline?

Barbara Jo: Because we have a certain philosophy about life and about how children should be treated. To find it all in one book and ask new staff members to read and internalize it is much easier than constantly trying to tell them what we believe. Positive Discipline has so many things in it that pertain to our business. Also we want to help our staff develop into better parents. When they bring back the book and the book review, many say,

"This really helps with everything I do now; but I'm so glad I read this before I became a parent."

Jane: How has Positive Discipline helped in a practical sense?

Barbara Jo: A couple of years ago, one of our team coaches went on maternity leave so we had a substitute coach. The girls on the team were being very disrespectful to the new coach. They were rolling their eyes when she asked them to do something, they whispered to each other in front of her, and they weren't doing what she asked them to do. We couldn't understand this because it was not like them at all.

Jane: What ages were the girls?

Barbara Jo: They were between eight and thirteen, and we felt the older girls were being terrible examples for the younger girls. We tried to figure out a positive way to help them understand how important it is to respect adults and to treat an adult like a human being. We decided to pull all these kids together for a team meeting.

I started the meeting by reading part of our training manual on our staff policies about respecting one another. Then I said, "Girls, it's a requirement for people who work at Tricks to respect you, the students. In return, we think the students should respect the coaches. I wanted to show you this and talk about it. Then I want you to come up with a solution to change what is happening."

So they talked about it. It took a while to get them to finally let their guard down and say, "Well, we're mad that Christine's not here. We like her so much. We don't think the substitute can be as good."

I said, "Well, okay, what are we going to do about it? We're a team and we should treat people with respect. I'm going to leave it up to you to figure it out. I'll be here to listen to you. I'm curious what solutions you'll come up with."

One of the older ones took the lead, and said, "Well, it would probably hurt my feelings too if we did what we did to Sabina, but we're just mad that Christine's not here." I said, "Well, I understand that, but she's going to have a baby. It's really important that you give Sabina a chance because she is very good, too."

They said, "Okay, we understand."

I added, "Someday, you guys will probably work at Tricks, too, and I'm so happy you understand how we work, because it'll make you even better employees." That made them feel like, "Whoa...we are important and we can work this out because some day we'll be adults and we'll treat people with respect." So it took that one time and I guess they felt empowered because they made a decision to treat Sabina with respect.

Jane: So they were feeling hurt by losing their beloved coach. Without realizing what they were doing, they were getting even by hurting Sabina, an innocent bystander. Sometimes we don't understand that when kids use hurtful behavior, it's because they feel hurt. And sometimes they don't understand what they feel hurt about. They felt abandoned by Christine, even though she didn't mean to abandon them, but they still felt hurt. You gave them a chance to explore their feelings, and they were able to acknowledge them. Then you empowered them by turning the problem over to them and having faith in them that they could work it out. What a great example.

Barbara Jo: It worked miracles.

Jane: Can you give me another example?

Vern: We had a team that wanted to compete. We had a meeting with their parents and outlined our philosophy. We explained that we use the Positive Discipline approach to gymnastics, which is totally different from what they see in many other programs. So many other gyms teach by belittling and by intimidation. They use negative reinforcement in their attempts to motivate improvement. We refuse to do that.

Then we ran into a problem. We weren't sure how to motivate the kids to do their best in competition without using traditional methods.

Barbara Jo: It's not in my nature to be mean to children, but at this point our team was not very motivated. I was at my wit's end. I called a team meeting and said, "You know I can't treat you disrespectfully like some coaches do, but we have a goal to perform our best. I need your help to figure out how we're all going to do this together. Some coaches in other gyms are mean to their kids: they yell at them, they can't go on family vacations, they can't go to school functions, they can't do anything else but be in the gym. I just don't believe in that. The problem is that we all have the same goal because we're all competing against each other. Will you figure out what I can do and say to motivate you that feels good to me and to you?"

Jane: What did they come up with?

Barbara Jo: They wanted to be respected. They didn't want to be yelled at, but they decided it was okay if I gave them assignments and they would do them. I said, "Okay, if I tell you you're going to do ten flip-flops on the beam, then you're going to do ten flip-flops on the beam, right?" They said, "Yes, we'll agree to do what you ask and you won't have to yell at us." So first they agreed to do what I asked them to do.

Jane: There's something so powerful about involving them respectfully.

Barbara Jo: When we had that team meeting, it totally changed the feeling of our relationship. I wasn't the dominant coach who was trying to push. It was so nice to say, "I'm not going to push you in that direction, I'm going to stand at the goal and you come with me. We'll do this together."

Vern: Once we gave them the responsibility and took the responsibility off us, they had a different attitude about all of it.

Jane: It's just so simple and so powerful. As soon as the kids feel listened to and taken seriously... it's a powerful thing. Can you tell me any other ways you think the staff uses Positive Discipline? How do they apply what they read?

Barbara Jo: The biggest difference is that they understand that misbehaving children are not just doing it because they're bratty. There's a reason why they are misbehaving. So I think they can look past the behavior and into the cause.

I had a child who is usually an angel come in the other day and start doing obnoxious things. I thought, "Oh, my gosh, your mother had her baby, didn't she?" It helps the staff understand things like that. It gives them more depth and more options about why children are misbehaving.

We steer clear of punishment. Sometimes new people will come in "those who haven't read Positive Discipline yet and they're frustrated. They give more time outs and the kids don't cooperate. Once they read Positive Discipline and understand our philosophy, everything changes."

One thing we do for the staff is called "See the Positive." I think our generation was raised with a lot of 'don'ts' don't touch that, don't go by the fire, don't do this. I think the human brain doesn't comprehend the word 'don't' when it's placed in front of a verb. So, if you say, "Don't fall off the beam", all the brain hears is "Fall off the beam." You can say the same thing in a positive way. "Stay on the beam." We have a whole list of things like that. Our staff learns to flip those kinds of sentences around to take out the "don't" and find a positive way to teach. That causes a big change.

Vern: One of the most difficult things I could see about applying the Positive Discipline approach to gymnastics was the family meeting. I wondered how we could incorporate that into the gymnastic structure because we've got kids changing classes and we've got new people coming in all the time.

Another obstacle is that we only see most of the children once a week. If we say something at the end of class about how to behave or even congratulate them on how they behaved today, we won't see them for another seven days.

We found it works out best to have a little group meeting before class begins, right after warm ups, to reinforce a particular issue. We get the kids involved in solving problems whenever they come up. We have a compacted little family meeting before class.

Jane: Anything else?

Barbara Jo: Yes. We have a big thing at the gym about making mistakes. One week is called "I Can" week. We put a balance beam on a hill. It is low, but for three-year-olds it's quite a challenge. The teachers will get on at the bottom and say, "I think I can, I think I can," and then we'll fall off. Then we turn to the kids and say, "Is it okay to fall off?" They say "No." We say, "Yes...please fall off. We want you to fall off. That's the only way you learn to stay on." Then we'll go back to the bottom and make it almost all the way to the top and ask again, "Is it okay to fall off." They laugh and say, "Yes, it's okay to fall off." They learn that mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn.

Jane: It warms my heart to know that so many children have the opportunity for the encouragement and life skills they experience and learn at Tricks Gym. It is obvious to me that Positive Discipline is, as you said in the beginning, simply a reflection of your wonderful philosophy about kids.

Thank you Vern and Barbara Jo Taylor, for reaching and teaching so many children and their parents.

 Past Articles

by Jane Nelsen		Positive Discipline
		Retail Price: $14.95 Sale Price: $9.95 Also available as an E-Book E-Book Price: $6.95 For twenty-five years, Positive Discipline has been the gold standard reference for grown-ups working with children. Now Jane Nelsen, distinguished psychologist, educator, and mother of seven, has written a revised and expanded edition. The key to positive discipline is not punishment, she tells us, but mutual respect. Nelsen coaches parents and teachers to be both firm and kind, so that any child–from a three-year-old toddler to a rebellious teenager–can learn creative cooperation and self-discipline with no loss of dignity. Inside you’ll discover how to: • bridge communication gaps • defuse power struggles • avoid the dangers of praise • enforce your message of love • build on strengths, not weaknesses • hold children accountable with their self-respect intact • teach children not what to think but how to think • win cooperation at home and at school • meet the special challenge of teen misbehavior