anyone 'converted' from reward/praise/punish style to 'unconditional parenting'?

[dandycandyjellybean]

I've bought the book and really like the 'idea' of it, but am a bit sceptical about totally 'spoiling' my ds, or it all getting totally out of hand. {He has shown some aggressive tendencies lately, which I believe stem from nursery, but seem to get worse and escalate the 'harder' I am on him}. Really confused, can anyone help?

[OurLadyOfPerpetualSupper]

bumping for you as I know there are some wise people with more recent experience than me.

But I know it struck me that if I continued as I was with DS1 years ago, get next logical step would be hitting him - which was a road I knew I didn't want to go down.

Ten years later (he's 14), I couldn't ask for a lovelier boy.

He can be a scamp and occasionally tries it on, as will all teenagers, but he's not sly (Afaik) - still tells me things I would never have told my parents.

If I'd carried on with the shouting I'm sure there'd be a distance between us, which is a horrible thought to me now.

Treating children as people takes more time and thought, but it doesn't spoil them.

[gagarin]

TBH you seem to be looking at it in black and white - it's not a case of one or the other....and not everyone who "doens't get" unconditional parenting does the "punish" bit!

Reward/praise/ignore is more like it

[juuule]

"Treating children as people takes more time and thought, but it doesn't spoil them"

Very true, imo. UP also doesn't mean that you don't have any boundaries any more. It just means that you stop to consider that the child/teen may have a point...or not.

[cory]

agree with gagarin

we have boundaries in our family, certainly; but then we have boundaries for how the adults can behave too; dd is not allowed to shoot off for the evening without telling us where she's going or asking if it's convenient- but then Daddy's not allowed to do that either

you can have boundaries without spending all day ricocheting between the sticker chart and the naughty step

it's all about balance imo; you can take bits out of your book without going totally overboard

and a cheerful calm manner will do wonders when nothing else with

[cory]

we don't call our parenting UP btw, but looking at some of our friends, and reading some of the posts on MN, I think I am naturally inclined to talk more to dcs than many parents anyway and think of them more as rational beings

though I never had any difficulty hauling a tantrumming toddler away from the sweet counter