I was talking about UP and related "gentle" discipline etc with my Mum today. I had felt a bit apprehensive with ever bringing up the subject of discipline with her because although I feel she was UP in a lot of ways, always reassuring us that we were loved, lots of explanations etc and attempting to address the whole issue rather than just fix the immediate "problem", she did used to smack and once smacked DS instinctively because he was hurting the cat and she couldn't think of any other way to get him to let go. (Not hard and I don't think he noticed.) TBH I think if she'd had access to the kind of resources I have access to, books, internet, etc, she perhaps wouldn't have - but of course it was just the done thing in previous decades.
But she said something which I thought was really interesting. I was explaining how I think the mainstream approach of waiting for the child to do something wrong and then punishing them is backwards, and just treats the symptom, and that what really matters is to encourage your child to be respectful, empathetic, etc from the start - by treating them with empathy and respect. And of course at times they will do things which challenge this, but the important thing is that they don't repeat the unwanted action, learn WHY not to do something, and/or what the effect of that action is - and while that might well involve something commonly thought of as a punishment, e.g. if I cannot trust you to walk by a road safely, you must hold hands or sit in a pushchair etc, if the child understands the message then an unrelated punishment is unnecessary, and I wondered out loud why so many people think they MUST make their child suffer to "pay" for what they have done wrong, as if it's the only way they will ever learn. I said it's almost like revenge, and she said yes, it's because they are taking it personally. Once you realise it's just a child being a child and not a child out to make your life hell for fun, discipline stops being a battle between the child and the parent, and becomes more of what it is - showing a child how to be an adult and equipping them with the skills necessary to survive in an adult world.
She also said that at any point if you feel frustrated with your child, try to step back and think wait, AM I taking this personally? Am I reacting because of that? Do I need to calm down and look at this situation more objectively?
I often find that when I'm getting frustrated with DS I write out a huge post, not on here, unless I can find a safe UP thread, but on another parenting forum which is more UP-friendly (as MN can be pretty UP-unfriendly at times) and I'll go away and when I come back a couple of days later and read it back, it's obvious - recently I was having trouble with DS hitting and pinching me, and I posted, and got a couple of replies, but nothing ground-breaking. But when I came back a few days later I could see exactly what the problem was, and it's that I haven't been giving him enough physical attention/physical play, because the times that it happens are either when he's tired or his blood sugar is low (me not being organised enough with bedtimes, naps and mealtimes) or days when I've vegged on the computer all day and fobbed him off to play with his trains or watch youtube sitting on my lap.
Anyway I'm waffling. On a semi-related note, these threads have been a fantastic resource for me, on a theoretical as well as a practical level, and I'm thinking about starting a blog on these kind of non-punishment, non-coercive discipline techniques, because they are so complex that it's impossible to explain in a single post, and I think it would be useful to be able to collate information. Going to start a thread asking about names/terms if anyone wants to input.