Parenting without punishments/rewards support thread

[BertieBotts]

Come on, it's about time we had a new one of these Whatever label you want to stick on it, unconditional parenting, gentle discipline, or just avoiding carrot or stick methods as much as possible in favour of a more co-operative approach, it works. (Personally I don't like the gentle label because I think that it's perfectly possible to be as firm as you like using these kinds of methods and "gentle" implies wishy-washiness.)

Not intended to be a debate thread, but a support/questions thread. Curiosity welcomed, outright "My way is better" posts not.

I promised a while ago I'd write up the basic principles that I try to stick to so hopefully this will help as a starting point as well as a reference.

1. Punishments are not always bad.
Sounds totally non intuitive, I know considering the thread title. The point is that punishment for punishment's sake is what's bad, or counterproductive, at least, but you shouldn't be afraid to do something which might upset your child if it's necessary to the situation. Try to ask yourself before you impose something:

• Is this helping the immediate situation, or physically preventing the situation from reoccurring?
• Is this helping my DC learn what's actually wrong with what they did?
• Is this helping make things right? (NOT in an eye-for-an-eye way!)
• Is this just to make me feel better?
• Is there an alternative which would achieve the same goal with less bad feeling?

2. Don't take it personally.
When your child is playing up, it's not because they are out to get you, and it's probably not a power battle, despite what all the expert opinions seem to be. They are reacting in the way they are reacting because that is the best way they know to deal with that situation, whatever it might be.

Even if they've done something deliberately hurtful or spiteful, look for the reason behind that - it's more likely to be a misguided attempt to express an emotion, e.g. anger, jealousy, upset, and it's possible to convey "Actually, that isn't acceptable" at the same time as dealing with the feeling behind the actions - in fact it's often more important to deal with the feeling first and the action later, especially if you're feeling you want them to suffer, "pay" or feel bad for what they've done. You can't induce guilt by punishing, it's more likely to induce resentment.

3. Show them what you want.
Both at crisis point and in everyday life, so, again, something often considered a punishment e.g. time out can work well here as long as you aren't threatening it or attaching negative connotations to it - just showing them "You are angry/excited/silly/winding each other up and I need you to take a breather" until they can do that for themselves.

In everyday life - model the behaviour that you want. If you slip into something you don't want them to model, like shouting, apologise as soon as you realise even if it's after the fact. Respond if they ask you to stop shouting, and own it, don't make them responsible for it (by saying things like "If you'd just listen, I wouldn't have to shout". Grown ups screw up too, and they need to see you deal with that graciously if they are to learn to do the same.

Listen to their requests and acknowledge them (which doesn't mean agree) if you want them to listen to you, don't belittle their feelings if you want them to be empathetic, say please and thank you and sorry. Negotiate but be firm.

4. Be specific with instructions or praise.
Linking back to the UP theory that rewards/praise can be harmful, especially if they are too non specific, try to steer clear of "stock praise" like good girl/boy, well done, etc. It's fairly easy once you get into the habit of it - I tend to use "Thank you for..." instead of "good boy" and "That's right" or some kind of comment about whatever it is DS is telling/showing me rather than just "Well done".

With instructions it's similar - you can start even when they're tiny, not just saying "No" but "careful" or "hot" or "Don't touch" and when they get a bit older trying to stick to the positive instruction like "Stay on the pavement" rather than "Don't go on the road" - it's also more instructive since not being on the road could mean the kerb is okay, or the grass, or that little low wall (which might actually be okay but you can negotiate easier if you're starting from a position of nowhere but the pavement.) I suppose points 3 and 4 are linked. So again, focus on what you want rather than what you don't want. It can also help especially with toddlers to instruct in advance/tell them what to expect, e.g. saying a few minutes before you get to a busy road that when you get there, they will need to go in the pushchair.

5. Look past the immediate behaviour.
Why are they behaving in this way? Immediate points to consider:

• Are they tired, hungry, hot or hormonal?
• Are you any of the above and so over-reacting?
• Is there anything else going on, even if it seems unrelated, that might be worrying them?
• Are you assuming adult priorities onto a child who might find something more important or more scary than you do?
• Have they got this behaviour from somewhere else?
• Are your expectations too high?

None of these are a total excuse but should shape the way you deal with things. It's also why things like reward charts etc aren't always helpful because they don't address why something isn't happening in the first place.

(Sorry this is so long )

Hi, could anyone recomend a couple of good books about positive parenting/not using rewards and punishments etc? DS is only 8 months, but I can feel that we're already turning out to be a bit more 'shouty parent' then either of us want, so want to nip it in the bud now and start some good habits!

Marking place (thread fell off my active convos )

Latte I would carry on with the calming bedtime thing you have now and not worry about the early waking - after a couple of days of it you'll probably find he's so tired that he sleeps in (wake him if necessary) and things should sort out by themselves. But tell him he needs to play quietly in his room if his gro clock is still on the moon, that's the deal.

Jodidi I know it doesn't sound very UP but I would seriously think about cutting back freedom (ie, grounding or insisting she has to be picked up/dropped off/chaperoned) if she isn't dealing with that freedom appropriately. Just because you absolutely need to know that she is safe and you can trust her. If you can't trust her, then it isn't safe for you to be letting her out alone. So if she wants to go and see a friend, fine, but she has to wait until it's convenient for you or another adult to drop her off there. Also I think a condition of having a phone should be that she has to answer it or ring you straight back if she misses the call. Most networks have a system where you can program in "favourite numbers" which they can get free or low cost calls to, or she can use 0800 reverse from a mobile if she's out of credit. But obviously you wouldn't really be letting her go off without a phone, so that kind of ties in with the other one, but treat as separate issues I think.

My kind of gut feeling is that when they're teens you need to get really strong on boundaries and hopefully fall back on all the groundwork you've done when they are younger. But freedom comes with responsibility and if they're showing that they're not mature enough to deal with that then it's fair to cut it back until they can prove to you that they're able, if that makes sense.

Marzipan I told DS that the car won't start unless everyone is in their seat with their seatbelt done up! If you thought he wanted to sit in the front then it might have helped to let him sit in the front for a minute (before you switched the car on obviously!) and then said "Okay then, it's time to go, get into your car seat now please" and then just carried on in a matter of fact way/perhaps saying in a "silly" voice (like you might say "Socks don't go on heads!" as a game when getting dressed) "You can't sit in the front! Children don't sit in the front, how silly!" However, bribery and/or force are necessary sometimes for speed. It's a safety issue, you can't compromise on this one and as exotic says you don't always have time for negotiation. You could try the validating too - "You want to sit in the front with Mummy. You don't want to sit in your car seat. That makes you feel sad."

Easily How To Talk So Kids Will Listen is a good book, it's aimed more at older children, but the validating works quite well for toddler tantrums. The No Cry Discipline Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and The Good Behaviour Book from Sears have some good stuff in too although they both fall back on time out, so if you want something to pick and choose from they're good.

Thanks for the advice ladies. I think dh and I have come to terms with the fact thatn there are a lot of things ds1 needs to do before bed......favourite tv show, story, write in his diary, draw some pictures, flick through another book

but heis a pretty highly strung child and if he needs this to calm down the best thing we can do is start bedtime really early so he has plenty of time to settle himself so he's not falling asleep too late. I think because we've been trying to rush him we're just causing conflict which makes him attention seek.

Trying for first time to tonight as getting near back to school time so we aren't out and about as much this next week.

It is pretty hard changing parenting styles after so long, but finally getting dh on board and making slow and steady progress.

Should also add that early waking stopped as soon as we let his bedtime slide later again. But now he is sleeping in til after 8 which will be too late for school so we do need to be getting him off earlier for the sake of his well being as well as ours.

Thanks for the advice Bertie. We didn't end up grounding her or anything like that because it's sort of the exact opposite of what we want to achieve. She wants to spend all of her time in her bedroom reading on her own and we're having to really encourage her to socialise with her friends. We haven't had any more problems though, she has answered every time I've phoned and made sure I know where she is. She does seem to be pushing boundaries but each time she only seems to do it once. Like when she truanted, it was 2 days and when we discussed it she was told she wouldn't be able to walk to and from school herself, I would drop her off at 8am and pick her up at 4:30pm from the library and I spoke to her head of house to discuss the bullying and asked him to phone me if ever she was off and I hadn't phoned school before registration. Unfortunately I didn't manage to do the drop off and collect that I wanted to as I had a miscarriage and could barely cope with anything for a while, but she hasn't done anything like that again that i know of

I do think she gets the message, it's just that she doesn't think about things like making sure her phone is loud enough to hear, etc.

Marking my place to read through and catch up.

That's good :) It's great you managed to find a solution. Perhaps I was a little heavy handed with my suggestion - see why one size never fits all! Also I think I was reading it wrong and thinking it was happening more often, too. Sometimes it is best to give them the benefit of the doubt, assume positive intent and just listen to them and trust them. Trust is so valuable to teenagers. (I know she's not quite there yet )

I think my tone was a bit harsh when I was describing it actually, I was just annoyed at the time as it had just happened. I do know that trust is incredibly valuable for teenagers as I teach loads of them, but it seems so difficult to know where to draw the line between trust and boundaries.

I still never hear my phone!!! My dh hates that, but I just seem to always miss calls perhaps it's because my parents never trusted me
I am reading the Alfie kohn book, just brilliant, thank you to this thread for making me brave enough to buy it (had already eyed it but was put off by amazon reviews).

I've now read all comments I had missed.
Some great advice

We don't use the word "naughty" at home. Nursery doesn't either but DD picked it up from the other children maybe? as she came home a few weeks ago with the word at the tip of her tongue. It was also quite aggressive the way she said it when she used it ("you naughty baby!" to DS). We talked to her and said children were not naughty, that sometimes we all make mistakes or behave in a way that makes others sad/angry, but that children were not naughty. She seems to have got the idea, as she doesn't say it anymore.

Bertie, how's DS doing with the cat?

We seem to be on those non-sharing patches again... DD gets very annoyed and starts screaming if DS goes for something she has. I try and ask her to give me a solution to the problem (the fact they both want the same toy) or to bring something else DS might like but she gets very upset and screams nonetheless in the meantime. So hard not to interfere!

DC in bed since 6.30pm this evening so I'd better make the most of it while it lasts.

i love the sound of this thread , not had time to read whole thread, but can someone explain 'praising too much' abd why this is a problem?

Smk84, C&P from upthread (lazy, I know )

This is from the UP book.

[...] "Good job" can interfere with how well a job actually gets done. Researchers keep finding that individuals who are praised for doing well at a creative task often stumble at the next task. Why? Partly because the praise creates pressure to "keep up the good work" that gets in the way of doing so. Partly because people's interest in what they're doing may have declined (because now the main goal is just to get more praise). Partly because they become less likely to take risks - a prerequisite for creativity - once they start thinking about how to keep those positive comments coming [...]

[...] More worrisome was a study in which young children who were often praised by their parents for displays of generosity tended to be slightly less generous on an everyday basis than other children were - again, just like kids who received tangible rewards. Every time they heard "good sharing!" or "I'm so proud of you for helping" they became a little less interested in sharing or helping. Those actions came to be seen not as something valuable in their own right but as something the children had to do to get that reaction again from an adult. in this case, it was generosity that became merely a means to an end. in other case, it might be painting or swimming or multiplying or anything else for which we offer positive reinforcement [...]

[...] Take Jack: He shared his toy with a friend in the hopes that his mom would notice and shower him with adulation ("I really like how you're letting Gregory play, too"). But then there's Zack: He shared his toy without knowing or even caring whether his mom noticed. He did it for the simple reason that he didn't want his friend to feel bad. Praise for sharing typically ignores these different motives. Worse, it may actually promote the less desirable one by making children more likely to fish for praise in the future [...]

What they suggest is describing what the child has done/achieved and then say, for example, "You should be proud of yourself, that can sometimes be tricky" or whatever, instead of "I'm very proud of you", which again puts the emphasis on what you feel instead of what they feel.

Back later, baby crying!

ooh just found this thread - looks really intriguing..

DD has been going to nursery one day a week so now we have 'i was good and ate my tea' and 'no, DS that's naughty'

If anyone is still around I have a problem and would appreciate some input.

DD (2.5) has taken to pulling/pushing DS (10 months) over. I've noticed it mostly happens when she is tired (that's what getting up at 5/5:30 does for you) but still not sure what to do.

I've been saying we don't push/pull babies over because that can hurt them and if she is repeatably doing it I put her in her room for a few minutes and say I've put you here so you can't hurt DS. That is what has been coming to me at the time but I want to sit and think about it properly now. We live in a small flat so bedroom is normally just there.

I also think some of the problem is DS is mobile enough to start playing with her, she tries to get him to chase her etc. but then she loses track of the fact he can't walk/talk/understand so I think sometimes it's a case of her physically trying to get DS to go where she wants. However more frequently now it is just going past him and pulling him over.

climbingp I'm no expert as I only have ds 17mo, but we have quite succeeded in making him be gentle with the cats by demonstrating what can be done or can't. So if we say 'gentle' when touching them we touch gently both the cat and him. Perhaps you can demonstrate how she can hold baby's hand but not push him? I would also remove the baby rather than her (not sure how) but that way she won't feel 'punished' for a behaviour shes not fully in control of?
I'm sure proper suggestions will appear here soon.

Hi all. Can I join you please? Just seen this :)

SirBoob, welcome

ClimbingPenguin, k2's suggestions are very good. I think the "show them how 'gentle' looks" was mentioned upthread, and it does make sense if we think about it. Here we're very much on the same boat, and it's a daily thing ::sighs:: What sometimes works for us is asking her to remember when she was pushed once by one of the children at nursery. She remembers that v well as she came home upset to tell us what had happened. So we say: M, remember how that made you feel? Did you feel sad or happy about that? She replies and she usually "clicks". The next day she forgets though Also, if she's pulling him (from his clothes) so as to "play" with him, we stop and ask her if that's the way we ask for someone to come play with us... she replies "no" and again "clicks". I really hope it becomes more internalised soon
As K2 said, I'm sure there'll be more (and better!) suggestions coming.

Latest development here is screaming. When she gets frustrated she screams as if she's telling us off. And she says "I'm very sad, I'm not talking to you right now", which, I guess wouldn't be too bad in theory if she didn't scream it to your face. So, we're working on that part.

Hope everyone is well.

I think I show her, it has been a continual theme. When it happens with the hugs it's understandable, the walking past and just pushing/pulling/kicking not so much. I remind her that if hurts when done to her. Mostly it does seem to happen when she's really tired so just trying to get though this period and also let her adjust to him moving and his limitations. Today she trapped his hand in the door :( and he still has marks on him. I have to admit I had to leave her in room and close the front room door while I tended to DS and then once calm, I calmly explained to her. We had already been saying to not close doors when people are around. For the rough playing I feel OK as I can redirect/show the gentle way, the random 'attacking' I'm not sure her need so don't know what to redirect to. It's so blase, if it was clear frustration I would say we can hit cushions/stamp our feet like normal.

She's fairly flighty, even with the neighbourhood cat we have to remind her to stroke the side and remind of the time she didn't and got scratched.

DD's favourite phrase atm is 'I'm sad' I can see why people forgot to teach words for the negative emotions. Screaming sounds tough.

Gauchita and climbing my dd2 says "I'm very sad" too. It's her 'go to' phrase when anybody stops her doing anything.

I don't know really what to suggest about hitting a sibling as mine have such a big age gap that it isn't an issue (dd1 would be in very serious trouble if she ever thought of hitting dd2) I can only second the advice about talking to her about it and reminding her that she shouldn't hit anybody with reasons why, every single time.

Anybody got any good ideas for dealing with a 2yo running away in shops? I really want to get out of needing to use the buggy for every trip, but she has discovered hide and seek as a game at home and thinks it's a really good game for out and about too . So I was the woman chasing her toddler round the pound shop at the weekend, then holding her hand firmly the rest of the way round as she screamed about it being 'too tight, hurting' (it wasn't hard enough to hurt her, just firm enough for her not to be able to get away). She ran away in the supermarket a couple of weeks ago too, I thought she was with dp, he thought she was with me, she actually went to play on the rides near the checkout. We are at the minute explaining every time we go out that she has to stay close so she doesn't get lost, and at bedtime we are reading a lot of stories about baby animals who get lost and are unhappy til they find their mums, then they get a big cuddle and everything is ok again.

Marking my place as want to know more about this. DD is 19mo, and I need a rough approach to guide me.

Goldidi, how scary for you! DD never had a running away phase as such but the times she's wanted to or actually run around enough to worry us we've always had the same chat: (mind you, I don't actually know if this is the right approach, it's just one that's worked for us ) she's seen Finding Nemo and loves that film. So we go through what happened to him and how sad both him and his dad were when he got lost after wandering around. We've talked about how crowded places are tricky as you can get lost among all the people, etc.

Watching with interest for a better approach though ::hopes she hasn't traumatised her child::

I hadn't thought of Finding nemo, I think we may have to get that dvd and watch it together so she sees Nemo being so sad about being lost. She hasn't really grasped it yet (it's a bit of a difficult concept for a 2yo I guess) but she seems to be slowly understanding more of the stories we're reading (she cried when the baby elephant couldn't find her mummy :() I do remember dd1 doing something similar but she only ever did it once and just took the rule 'don't run away from mummy in shops' on board.

DD largely wore her backpack reins at 2, at 2.5 she hardly wears them.

she did run off with DH though, afterwards we explained that she shouldn't do it and can scare mummy and daddy if we don't know where she is. We also practice saying 'where's DD' and she's to shout 'here I am'. Actually we have slipped out of that habbit so I better get back into it. Aim to do it in the house and out and about.