Dr. Jane Nelsen

Background

Jane Nelsen is the mother of seven children, grandmother of 22, and great-grandmother of 11. The idea for her first book grew out of her own experience as a parent, after a college course in child development and family relations introduced her to the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs.

Education & Training

She holds a doctorate in education (EdD) from the University of San Francisco and is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California. She has often said that her hands-on experience as a mother of seven has been just as important to her work as her formal training.

Theoretical Influences

Positive Discipline is built directly and explicitly on the work of Alfred Adler, founder of Individual Psychology and one of the first to bring parent education to American audiences in the 1920s, and his student Rudolf Dreikurs, who translated Adler's ideas into practical tools: the concept of a child's "mistaken goals" behind misbehavior, democratic family decision-making, and natural and logical consequences in place of punishment.

Known For

Nelsen is the author or co-author of the Positive Discipline series, more than 18 books, first published in 1981, that have sold millions of copies worldwide. She is also co-founder of the Positive Discipline Association, which trains and certifies parent educators and teachers in more than 70 countries.

Core Thesis

Her guiding principle is that "children do better when they feel better": misbehavior stems from a child feeling discouraged or disconnected from a basic need for belonging and significance, not from inherent badness. The solution she proposes is an approach that is kind and firm at the same time: clear boundaries held with mutual respect, an emphasis on teaching life skills rather than punishing, and encouraging cooperation through democratic structures like family meetings.

Recommended Books

• Positive Discipline: The Classic Guide to Helping Children Develop Self-Discipline, Responsibility, Cooperation, and Problem-Solving Skills, the classic starting point.
• Positive Discipline for Preschoolers / for Teenagers, age-specific editions.
• Positive Discipline A-Z, a problem-focused reference guide.