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]

OK everyone! Thread closed, LeQueen has spoken.

No sorry, Bonkers, I don't think How to Talk/Listen book is at all the same as UP. How to Talk...is close to PET which Alfie Kohn specifically slags off in his UP book (my parents had the PET book in the 1970s and bookworm that I was, I reread it many times). How to Talk has specific DO IT NOW scenarios for things as simple as picking up shoes in the hall, Kohn only considers it okay for parents to take action without consulting the child if it's a matter of Life or Death.

Kohn also quotes Thomas Gordon (inventor of PET) & Adele & Faber where it suits him. But Kohn doesn't like PET/How to Talk, as I recall off the top of my head, because he thinks it's not empathetic enough, and it still often means parent deciding on the "choices" just like the How to Talk book does, rather than striving to always have the child lead the way to finding their own solution (supposedly, personally I reckon that Kohn actually relies a lot on parents having subtle powers of persuasion).

The Explosive Child, a book I love, incidentally, is closer to UP. But not couched in any over-riding ideals, is just a practical manual .

Hmm, I think I have UP tendencies - I like to explain things to my children and talk things over ( on a good day )

• But I did find the toddler stage particularly difficult, and think I probably negotiated too much, especially with DS, when they were really little - tried to justify my decisions, instead of just making the choice and telling them what it was !

However all the talking has been good for their development overall, and at 9 and 12 they're turning into good kids as far as I can tell

Exoticfruits, you have hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned with UP, it produces people pleasers pretty much as much as other types of parenting. Some children are scared to displease their parents, and so listen to long explanations about why they mustn't do this and that and then try and please them more. I know this, as I was one (I still feel like I must make the right choices to please my mum in middle-age). In our house growing up there was no smacking, no reward charts, but lots of explanations, for a sensitive child as you say, the burden of being 'good' is just as great as with a more authoritarian style.

Balloonslayer no she doesn't She's 2.5. She has no concept that hitting someone else hurts them. She's doing it because the other child has a toy she wants or is in her way and she's frustrated and wants them to move/give it to her, not because she knows it's bad and wants to be evil for a moment. Seriously wtf?

lequeen, your friends are not UPer's they are, as colditz said, allergic to saying no!
and those are the people that ive UP a bad name.

AK states very clearly in the book that obviously every parent has things that are not discussable... their absolute no-no/s.
for me personally these are things like brushing teeth, wearing a seatbelt, not hitting people etc etc. these are non-negotiable, but I find that my children rarely have a problem with the things I have set rules upon because they're given freedon of choice in so many other areas.

so, i wouldn't spend 25 minutes trying to cajole my child to put a seatbelt on, and i certainly wouldn't not make them wear one just because they didn't want to.
if they refused to wear it i would put it on them, and explain again why they had to wear it. If it was ds1 who can undo his own seatbelt, and he repeatedly did so then there would be some kind of consequence.

UP is NOT about letting your child choose what they do and when they do it and never saying no. I don't know why people think it is

'UP is NOT about letting your child choose what they do and when they do it and never saying no. I don't know why people think it is'

Because a lot of people who parent in this way tell us that they are using UP to raise their child.

What thisyesterday said.

I get so tired of these sweeping generalisation about UP from people who have limited understanding of what it entails.

As an aside, I teach and I am pretty certain that most of the most troublesome children I see have certainly not come from UP households.

I suspect that interpreting up as no boundaries, giving into everything, never giving consequences is as accurate as interpreting my boundary setting with consequences as regular beatings.

Sorry, I've left the is out.

Dita I am not trying to call your DD bad or naughty or anything out of the ordinary. I am trying to say that if any 2.5 year old hits someone, it is because they are displeased with the hittee and have learned (usually because another child once hit them) that hitting them is not nice.

Believe me, your 2.5 year old is not daft. If she has ever been hit (and you say she has), she will have developed a concept that hitting someone else hurts them.

LeQueen Giving one rl example of parents who may or may not have been UPers but were certainly indecisive and whose actions caused inconvenience, and using that to decry UP as a whole, is unfair imo. You don't even know if they are remotely interested in UP.

I could reel off countless examples of friends of mine who've faffed around with the naughty step for ages, used bribery in a way that seemed to me wholly inappropriate etc etc I wouldn't discuss these examples in detail and use them to 'prove' that more traditional parenting doesn't work because I know that just bacause someone does something badly one day, doesn't mean that that method can never work. I've chosen an approach that fits with my overall outlook on life and I assume others have done the same.

We all have bad days as parents and handle some situations badly. In the shoe case you mention, you don't even know if the parents were 'doing' UP. Maybe they just wanted to avoid a meltdown as they had an audience.

Agree with ragged I have to limit myself on those threads, because it's like an addiction...

I'm glad I'm not alone-I had to sit on my hands with a recent UP support thread-I managed to resist.
The main problem is, as thisisyesterday says-they are allergic to 'no' and give UP a bad name-unfortunately they truly believe they are following Alfie Kohn.

I think onetoomanycornettos that you are quite right-the burden on a sensitive DC is far greater.

DCs like boundries and security-how secure would you feel if you didn't want to put your shoes on and your mother took you out in the cold without-so that you could see the sense! She is the adult-'put your shoes on NOW please' cuts out all the nonsense.

I wonder with the aeroplane seat belt-is that mother regularly breaking the law with car seat belts?

The other thing I can't stand is 'such and such will make mummy sad' as if mummy is some sort of swooning Victorian miss and the DC has to be responsible for her emotions! If mummy is sad that is mummy's problem-not the DCs (and if some cases if mummy is overcontrolling it might be good to upset the applecart a bit!)

I parent the 'exoticfruits way'-partly from my own upbringing-what to keep and what to change, partly my personality,partly what I read and partly trial and error. How I parent DC1 is slightly different to DC2 and slightly different again from how I parent DC3-the personality of the DC is a big factor.
I wouldn't write books about it and expect it to suit all parents and all DCs as 'a superior way'-It just suits us and has worked for us.

I know lots of parents who have followed all the books, co sleeping etc etc etc and they often have DCs they don't see much of. At least mine come back because they like our company. The main thing is communication and not taking yourself too seriously. We can have a good laugh at some of my worst moments-you miss out on that if you have been 'perfect' parents and made it into a career!

OK everyone! Thread closed, LeQueen has spoken.

Might as well-she says it all!!

thisisyesterday-your post at 9.42 describes common or garden parenting!!absolute no-no's/ choosing your battles/ as much freedom as possible..

Im curious as to what you think non-UPing parents actually do????

I don't do 'naughty steps' either.

the more i think about this- the more annoyed I get;

'UNconditionally Parenting' suggests thta the rest of us conditionally parent--that our love for our children is conditional???

The fact that people can debate at such great length what the UP book says and doesn't, what UP is and isn't, even all people who have read the same book at length & all taken detailed notes like I did (I presume), goes to show how vague it is. Which is yet another thing I don't like about the UP movement. Kohn very obviously is loathe to be any more clear, too (he hasn't published a followup).

Okay, will sit on my hands & just lurk on this thread for now on .

bejeezus... the difference is that UP involves NO rewards or punishments.

and yes, most parents do parent "conditionally"

that doesn't mean you LOVE them conditionally though. i think you have misinterpreted it.
the problem is that for a child it can seem as though your love or approval depends on them doing exactly what you want... that it's conditional.

and yes, i think it is "vague" to a certain extent because it isn't a method. it doesn't have a set of rules.
it's a mindset rather than a method of parenting iyswim?

i think peiople take what they want from it

No one is aying you love them conditionally, but ignoring them when naughty, rewarding desired behaviour etc could unintentionally send the message to the child that love is earned and is a reward for certain behaviour.

Sorry, x post - too slow!

The problem I have is with people who don't discipline their children, don't tell them that what they're doing is unacceptable, but simply ignore poor behaviour or even reward it with smiles and hugs. Some people then read about UP and say that's the approach they're taking, when actually, they are opting out of parenting. They don't explain anything to their kids, they simply indulge their poor behaviour, often at the expense of the kids and adults around them.

That's not UP,I know, but that's how people see UP.

I think it's just a method that can be misused and done half heartedly with poor results, just like any other parenting method. That's why most people pick and mix with approaches til they get the method that works for them.

I personally hate UP evangelists, like I hate BF evangelists and BLW evangelists. The clue is the not the first part of the label...it's the second. Preach to others that what they're doing is wrong and what you're doing is wrong and my off button is switched off immediately!!!