or are UP parents really nuts?

[FunnysInTheGarden]

I mean talk about making all your lives difficult....

Am ready BTW for the UP parents cries of dissent [cgrin]

"I wouldn't call this UP-I would call it common sense, normal parenting."

Maybe that's what it is. But just because you wouldn't call it UP, doesn't mean that others can't.

And someone parenting in a UP (common sense, normal parenting) style could still have children who would follow instructions and obey safety rules. Why wouldn't they?

Not if they read the book-don't understand it and let a DC take off in an areoplane without a seat belt because 'they don't want to', juuule. The book has done more harm than good in that case. Likewise if a 2 yr old gets ready to hurl a stone in a crowded park and the parent asks him 'if he thinks it a good idea?'!!!

We are going around in circles somewhat. I just hate the label and the fact people have been parenting like it for ages, I'm pretty sure my grandparents were, and then along comes Alfie Kohn and earns lots of money writing a book about it-and we don't even know what he is actually like as a parent!

"It's quite possible to be HE and be studious and self-motivated. Those 2 things are not mutually exclusive either."

Of course is it. Apologies if I sounded otherwise. I imagine if you are a concientious home edder you have to put up with all sorts of 'your child is weird/odd/won't-fit-in' nonsense.

It's something I've momentarily considered doing but ultimately I don't think I'd be good at it. I accept my limitations.

"we don't even know what he is actually like as a parent"

Well, at least he is one. I can think of a couple of childless women (who shall remain nameless) who have made a fortune from pop-behaviourist child-rearing manuals.

Agreed there otcha (just goes to show that anyone can set themselves up as expert)

exotic - You don't seem to have a problem with the content of the book (common sense,normal parenting that you think your grandparents parented like). So if you've no issue with the type of parents your grandparents were then presumably you wouldn't have much issue with AK.

Is it just the labelling you don't like and the fact he made money out of writing about an approach to parenting or that some people misinterpret his books or all these?

I'm not too sure where you think the problem lies.

As you say, it's going round in circles a bit.

I don't have a problem with many of his ideas. I have a problem with the label, I have a problem with him being a guru to be looked up to when we know nothing about him (other than what he cares to tell us).

He says:
A surprising amount of mail has been arriving lately with requests for details about my personal history. Some people are simply curious. Some ask because they think this information will be useful for a class assignment. And some seem angry about what I?ve written and appear to be hoping to find some fact about me that will make them feel better about dismissing my ideas.

We live in a society where the lives of celebrities are laid bare in magazines and television shows, and where people have come to feel entitled to information about the childhoods and private lives of complete strangers who are public or semi-public figures ? or even just authors. This sense of entitlement is actually rather odd, when you stop to think about it. In any case, I?m more interested in calling attention to ideas than to the particulars of my background. That?s why my website is dedicated to the former rather than to the latter. I?d rather that my arguments were judged on their merits rather than filtered through a biographical lens.

Which in one way I admire, I would be similar- BUT personally I want to know about him and his parenting in practice, rather than theory.

I mainly have a problem with the name unconditional parenting- which implies that anyone who is authoritarian, or believes in rewards etc is conditional- which I believe to be simply untrue.

I know of someone in this country who is a parenting expert and to read her stuff you would think she had all the answers. People who know her think she has big issues of her own- and her DCs are strange-given a wide berth by those that she mixes with -who are very alternative to start with. Her DH is the one who is much better with the DCs-from the outsiders point of view. She uses UP, but she has people (i.e mother) pleaser DDs and life is exactly the way that suits her-I would love to see how she coped if she had very boisterous boys who were not sensitive to her needs. She makes me very sceptical.

My last reason is probably unfair and prejudiced-he is American

I missed out the other problem-people who are just plain scared to say 'no' ,and be unpopular with their DC, can jump on the bandwagon and call it UP when they don't understand it!

What I have a problem with is that it seems with UP, that you try and try to explain to your tiny DC why they should really want to do as you ask, and then, when they won't, as tiny DC don't, you have to bribe them with chocolate buttons or make them do as they are told. And then you feel guilty about it............

So why not accept the nature of tiny children and go straight to the chocolate buttons, without the guilt?

Whatever did people do before chocolate buttons .

Watch yourself there, exotic . :o

I hesitated there CheerfulYank
I have American friends who have excellent parenting skills, but it does seem to be a country of extremes and some take the parenting to the extremes- in all ways! (maybe it just comes to the attention because it is a bigger country and more voluble or get more in the public attention)
I would have more sympathy for his stance if he wasn't writing and lecturing, and earning big money, from his childcare methods without telling us what practical experience he has and whether it has worked for him personally.

I don't know AK personally but a lot of what he writes makes sense to me when I think about it. He is writing about ideas which you can take or leave. For me, the UP book wasn't a 'How to' manual, it was a thought-provoking book which I found helpful and made sense to me combined with my experiences with my own children.

It's not the only parenting book I've read and there are others that after consideration, I've felt less comfortable with. There are others which I also took away some good ideas from (imo).

Exotic, you have already said that you think he writes about common sense parenting, which you've no objection to. Yet you seem to object to him writing about it for others to read.

How on earth can parenting by a book be intuitive
I hate the idea of UP and books called "how to talk"- The most nauseating childcare book I actually tried to read was the Children are from Venus one. Why on earth do you need to be told how to talk to children. All children are different and both mine need parenting differently and they react very differently to stress/ being upset etc
Talking never really helps with DS unless he is in the right frame of mind. WHen he angry and when little tantruming there is no way you would be able to get through to him or have a discussion on what he wants or what he is bothering him. Pick the right time and it works.
The whole UP thing (from reading this and other threads) just seems to breed children who have an inordinated sense of importance.
There is no place for a discussion on why a toddler doesn't want his shoes on when you have older child that needs to be in school in 10 minutes.
My two are teens now and don't seem to need very much parenting at all, which I think is down to putting in the hard work when they were little and not letting them think the world revolves around them.

Dd is only 9 months, and I haven't read any parenting manuals. Should I have?!

I do think though that you will always find research that fits who you already are, and your existing beliefs. For example, following a Gina Ford type routine would be totally 'not me', so her books are unlikely to tally with me, however my friend knew from pregnancy that her child would be independent of her from the word go and as such has found much research that shows her methods and approach to be correct. We are more laid back/attachment type parents (a well read friend tells me) and as such have seen lots of research that shows us our approach is the best. Of course it is, it's ours!

As in most things, a moderate balance is best I think. I think to call someone nuts for their approach is a little off though.

I think people like to have a label. Apparently because I carry dd in a wrap, use cloth nappies, am 'still' breastfeeding and co-sleep a lot I am a hippy. When in actual fact I 'wear' her cause it is easier than a pushchair, use cloth nappies cause it saves money and I hate waste, 'still' bf because it is easy and why wouldn't I, and co-sleep because I am lazy and like my sleep. Why the need for labels?

I do a bit of everything with my daughter but I can see the case for limiting punishment and reward - doesn't make me a wimp, I just have certain expectations of her intelligence.

An example of something that was making me tear my hair out was her running off in the street - we live in an urban area so it was v. important to sort it out quickly. She was 4 and a bit so old enough to know better. I thought we'd got over that stage a couple of years before. Anyway, one day we were coming out of ballet and she legged it off and hid from me around the corner. I didn't take her for the cake we usually buy on the way home as a 'punishment' and left it at that. Next day, we came out of nursery and she did the same fecking thing!! I went NUTS, shouted sent her straight to the car, told her she was in BIG trouble. Another mother (Swedish and very UP) asked me if I wanted her to take DD away while I calmed down. I was perfectly calm inside, but wanted DD to know how livid I was. DD was really angry with me for the next hour or so.

Later on in the evening we talked about it and she said she'd do it again if she wanted, she knew she wasn't going to run into the road so couldn't see what the problem was. When I asked her how she would feel if I was running away from her and she was calling me and I was ignoring her, her eyes started to widen and it finally sunk in. Later when DH came home I told him about it and he reinforced how dangerous it was.

So in that situation, a UP approach did work much better with her than sending her straight to bed when we got in or giving her a smack (which I was bloody tempted to do!). She has never done it again.

Personally, I find chats work much better with DD than anything else, but I don't let her argue with me, and I won't repeat things over and over again. Sometimes you do just have to lay the law down.

"Dd is only 9 months, and I haven't read any parenting manuals. Should I have?"

No - there's no 'should'. But then you already knew that :) If you do read one at a later date though, you might have a 'oooh that's what I do' moment or even a 'huh as if that would work' moment.

"I do think though that you will always find research that fits who you already are,"

Probably a lot of truth in that.

Last night, I put DS1 in a headlock to clean his teeth.

All of these things (by which I mean any type of parenting technique which necessitates the purchase of a book) seem to me to be cashing in on the fact that nowadays people like to research things, get reassurance and make informed decisions, rather than muddling through. In my own personal circle of friends, I have found that the people who became parents slightly later, and who had not had much contact with babies / children generally are more likely to turn to books / theories. It's fine for people to make this choice but I think the danger is when there is an over-reliance on it, or when you feel there is an implication that people who don't do the same are somehow lesser.

Ok, I've read everything on this thread and a bit more. I get that UP parents are trying to raise children who want to do the right thing - but I can't see how this teaches children to function in the real world, which is what I thought being a parent was about. Actions have consequences, bad choices have consequences. If children have been brought up in a consequence free household it is going to be a huge shock as an adult when they get their first bollocking from their boss for messing up even if they didn't meant to.

I can see how using a combination of explanation, encouraging the right choices and children getting consequences for their actions would work. Just can't see how children are being prepared for life without them.

OffToDoSomethingMoreInterestingNowTiggaxx

Thank you Mumsnet for answering a question that I have been puzzled about for over a year.
I had an acquaintance who after about a year of being very friendly to me and my DC suddenly dropped us like hot bricks. I just couldn't understand it. I had realised that she had a parenting style that involved a lot of withdrawing and talking and what seemed to us to be not many boundaries- but very controlling at the same time...
Having read this and the UP thread I now realise that she probably saw my parenting style as hugely contradicting hers. I may have inadvertantly suggested to her DC that she shouldn't do something whilst at our house and this was disapproved of by the mother (who rarely left her child to play without being present).
FWIW I am neither UP or CP -I have good and healthy 2 way communication with my DC and as parents we rarely 'discipline' but we do think that we have a great deal more experience of life and sometimes we know better!
But now I know what UP is I am no longer in the dark about why this particular parent is so standoffish towards me! Thanks!

LeQueen Although I disagree with much of your condescending analysis, I do agree with you about intuition. It is a word bandied about on parenting boards and actually people fail to recognise, or accept, that what they perceive to be 'intuition' is actually often a deep-seated acceptance and absorbtion of current fashions and mores. We all (however we behave or parent) like to think we plough our own (excellent, well-considered and intuitive) furrow, when actually we are more beholden to current thinking and philosophy than we like to admit. I am prepared to admit this to myself.

Again, I resent being lumped together with a homogenous group of parents. I have never discussed non-reward/sanction based parenting with anyone in real life, have never seen it in action (don't pay that much attention I guess), and I've only ever come across internet discussions of it. So I cannot say what 'these' people do and if they think and act in concert. But if it is anything like real life, there will be a wide variety of people doing it and a diverse application of it. I don't feel I belong to any 'club'. Or that I am more 'spiritual'. In fact, I am an atheist and skeptic.

I am interested in psychology and interested in education. I am particularly interested in the stranglehold behaviourism still has on parenting even though radical Skinnerism has been largely discredited as a theory of the mind. I read this book, along with many others, and aspects of it chimed with me. Not least as I was brought up in a similar way. I knew behaviourism wasn't for me.

As a couple, we are well-educated, intelligent (I hope, at least my husband is!) and confident people. I don't 'need' a certain book to tell me how to do something. I think many others feel the same. All the same, it is useful to read around the subject, gleaning tips and approaches and help deal with certain aspects of parenting. That seems entirely reasonable to me, responsible and not a sign of being pusillanimous.

If you don't care to read around the subject, that is fine also. You'll glean the status quo from friends and family anyway. But it would be egregious arrogance to think you can parent perfectly in your own little bubble. #

I clearly favour this approach, but don't think I am 'better'. Parents of all stripes vary: Some clearly are arrogant and think they do a fabulous job. Some feel all at sea and that they are struggling. Some veer between the two states. Some muddle through in the middle. Some follow a UP style, for want of a better word, others favour a mix, some are strict behavourists.

I don't lump the behaviourists together and opine they are a bunch of timorous nitwits who need Jo Frost to tell them what to do, and when they've learned what's what, that they are free to consider themselves rock-solid parents, better attuned to their children's needs.

I would like the same courtesy extended to me.

campocaro - you didn't say 'no' to a UP-parented child, did you ?

DH did that (quite gently, considering child in question was frightening an animal at the time) to our friends' DS. Cue howls of indignation, what seemed like hours of "explanation and reasoning" from child's mother, and my poor DH standing there like this

DH had never even heard of the concept of not saying 'no' to DC

"I may have inadvertantly suggested to her DC that she shouldn't do something whilst at our house and this was disapproved of by the mother"

Doesn't particularly sound like UP to me, just annoyance that you told off her kid. Some parents are like that.

You can tell a child off even if you follow a non-reward based parenting method. You can convey your frustration. You can say no. I say no alot. But you would need to say why and talk about it and work out better ways to deal with similar situations and try to get to the bottom of the behaviour. That's not always possible or practical, I agree, but should be the aim, at least.

dawntigga "If children have been brought up in a consequence free household "

You see, now this is what puzzles me. Because I haven't read that UP involves bringing up children in a consequence free household. I sometimes wonder if I've got a different version of the book to everyone else.