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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

or are UP parents really nuts?

684 replies

FunnysInTheGarden · 30/04/2011 22:33

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

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

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 30/04/2011 23:25

Schools do things differently from most families though, and children cope with the difference. It's a completely different environment, unless you have 30 children and a strict timetable! You teach them to think about their behaviour for themselves, not to rely on "chats" - and you can always speak to them about things that have happened at school and how they might handle that situation better in future.

lecce · 30/04/2011 23:26

What happens to these kids in the real world where we are all governed by punishments and rewards (going to work to get pay for example. Not swearing at your boss to avoid getting sacked, even the House Point systems in most schools)?

Sorry but my experience of life is not like that. Is it really true that good behaviour is always rewarded and bad punished? No. surely life is more random than that. I have worked with plenty of people who would have been termed naughty were they younger - rude, arrogant, dishonest etc. They were not 'punished' in the way your post suggests they would be by a boss acting as in a parental way.

Life just isn't like that and part of the purpose of UP parenting is helping children to take responsibility for their behaviour in preparation for a world where it just isn't as clear cut as "be good and you'll be fine". It's about helping children to develop their own moral compass to deal with that.

HRHShoesytwoesy · 30/04/2011 23:27

sorry still don't get it, maybe cos ds is now 19 and seems to know right from wrong, I am just trying to understand the new stuff cos I have new dn's but this just sounds like what people do anyway, I would tell ds off, but make sure he always knew he was loved. even if he was naughty

BertieBotts · 30/04/2011 23:30

Giddy the "official" line on it is yes the world is conditional, but the home should always be a safe space to know that they are loved no matter what.

I don't think DS would draw on someone else's wall. He has only ever done it when unsupervised, and not for ages, come to think of it, but why would he be unsupervised, with pens, in someone else's house or at nursery?

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:30

yes, as usual, people who aren't interested in actually learning anything about how UP works slagging it off and claiming that children will be lost in the adult world

you wanna discuss it? fine, go and read up on it and then I'll discuss it with you.

if you merely want to make bizarre claims on how it can't possibly work, based on your zero knowledge of it? then you're on your own i'm afraid

all i can tell you is that my 3 boys are really pretty well behaved, and there are a few MN'ers who can back that up for me Smile
my children don't need to be punished now simply because when they're at work there may be sanctions, or because prisons exist. and to argue that they do is really quite ignorant.

their home life does not need to be a mini replica of the outside world IMO! My children learn how to behave through watching me and their father, and by us telling them what is and isn't acceptable behaviour. not by being isolated every time they do something that we've abitrarily decided is "bad"

baskingseals · 30/04/2011 23:30

great post lecce

heliumballoons · 30/04/2011 23:33

My point about the swearing - I actually agree with what you say about dc's not being mini adults.

But thats the point they are children and may not know what the word is/ why you shouldn't use it.

Surely explaining about not using words you don't know the meaning too, the effect this has on others, the trouble it can get you into is better?

Well, maybe not - but worked for me and DS has not sworn since, although he has come home from school and asked me what certain words mean.

BertieBotts · 30/04/2011 23:34

Squeakytoy, most UP parents know that children can't rationalise or debate like adults. Which is why you explain and discuss at the child's level, not your own. Often when they are young it's easier to show than to tell, too - it's NOT all about talking and only talking, although there is a lot of talking involved, because IMO communication is the best way to solve a dispute into adulthood, so start the habit while they are young and it will come naturally.

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:34

if we're talking specifically about punishments and rewards (which is not the whole of UP at all) then here is a good link of a conversation with Alfie Kohn on the matter

squeakytoy · 30/04/2011 23:35

yesterday, you seem to assume that because people disagree, that we have not read up on it, and are clueless.

I have read plenty on it, and still think it is a load of liberal wishy-washy bollocks, written by some strange bloke, who has managed to con plenty of gullible people into buying his books and thinking they are the bees knees of parenting.

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:36

and another on conditional parenting

i'd be interested in your thoughts on them, if yo're willing to read them

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:37

i feel that you haven't read up on it because from what you've said you actually have no grasp on the ideas behind it.

maybe you have misunderstood whatever it is you have read?

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:38

am also LOVING how you assume that every post is about you Grin

other people mentioned jobs and YOU answer as if it was aimed at your response which it wasn't

my responses have not been particularly aimed at you,and yet you assume they are.

I wonder why that is

heliumballoons · 30/04/2011 23:39

Gotta go now and sleep. Thanks Bertie and TIY. As I said I found and joined the UP thread earlier (without knowledge of what it is/was). I will keep myself informed as I seem to do this with DS and would like to follow some more of the principles.

Night all x

BertieBotts · 30/04/2011 23:39

HRH I agree in a sense that I don't think it's as black and white as you punish, child thinks you don't love them. My mum used to punish (although I guess she was pretty UP without the name) and yet I know that whatever I did she would still love me, but I still think it's worth looking at alternatives, well it works for me and my DS so I suppose we can all agree to disagree. I don't avoid punishment in case DS thinks I don't love him though. I avoid it because I find it escalates things and if I can get the message through in another way, it just seems a bit pointless to punish as well.

BertieBotts · 30/04/2011 23:40

Night helium :)

Maryz · 30/04/2011 23:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

baskingseals · 30/04/2011 23:46

it's not about relaxing the rules though maryz.
it's more about respecting or/and accepting how they feel about the rules.
they still have to brush their teeth, go to bed, be kind to each other, eat their veg.

squeakytoy · 30/04/2011 23:46

Did you miss the "we" bit in my post then? I can only really speak for myself though, and my opinion, having read a fair amount on the subject previously, is that it is rather twee and ineffective in the long term.

I also find the smug tone of how you are right and anyone who disagrees with you must be unable to read, or understand, or is a bit thick (it would seem), very patronising.

Finally, I have never known a child who has been told off, or punished or momentarily told they are not liked for their behaviour to grow up with issues that their parents didnt love them. There is nothing at all wrong in a child behaving in order to please their parents, that is natural and normal behaviour.

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:46

i believe Alfie Kohn's eldest is a teenager now... think both of his kids have turned out ok :)

I also know a family of UP'ers whose eldest is 21, youngest is 3 and they're all fantastic kids

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:48

i can only base it on what you've said on here squeaky, and your replies thus far have shown that you really don't "get" what UP is about.
Sorry if you find that "smug", but you've said a lot of things which simply are not true about UP, so i can only assume that you actually don't know much about it, or have misunderstood whatever you've read about it.

baskingseals · 30/04/2011 23:48

there is quite a lot wrong with a child behaving in order to please his parents.

s/he needs to behave in a way that is acceptable to him/herself, and others.

Maryz · 30/04/2011 23:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

thisisyesterday · 30/04/2011 23:50

also an excerpt from the book here which gives more of an idea of what its all about

MollieO · 30/04/2011 23:50

Those of you who wouldn't discipline your dcs for writing on walls (I assume in the hope you've discovered the next Banksy!) do you correct their grammar/spelling?