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 )

Marking my place on here to learn more after a ridiculous half hour standoff with almost two year old and tantrum (from both of us) about putting away a milk cup. I need educating and will be looking back at the book recommendations as well.

cat I think the praising thing is really rather subtle. In the UP book for example, he even says that he has a thing against saying thank you... but personally, if DS comes in from the garden when I ask (he is 2.7) then instead of saying 'good boy' I do say thank you. In fact, I say thank you for a lot of times others might say 'good boy/girl'... It just means I am grateful and he was kind for helping me out I suppose, like any time you say thanks. As it is my DS says thanks ALL the time to everyone, not in a taught polite way but really, I believe because he means it which is a really nice thing. (i think, is contentious).

north well, stand offs are kind of par for the course I think sometimes?! We have had a couple of stand offs... you might need them sometimes... sparingly I reckon is nowt wrong with it are you ok tho, if it upset you it probably means there was some kind of imbalance between necessity and priniciple?! (or just being an over tired mama!)

It just got stupidly out of hand and I knew I wasn't dealing with it how I would like and it became all about the principle. It did start with extreme cheekiness ie no and giggling, but I just feel like I handled it very badly.

I've had so many stand offs with a tantruming toddler! When I'm having a good day I just talk aloud e.g 'oh well, maybe ds1 will help me instead/I'll just have to do it all by myself'.
With my (just) 3yr old I can only get him to respond to 'I'm going to count to 3!' - most of the time I don't even get to 1. It's not very UP at all though! I can manage with my 4yr old who loves to help and loves saying please and thankyou at the moment, but my 3yr old is very independent and finds it very very hard to see things from other people's perspective - so he won't do something to help me out, but he does think about it and do it sometimes if I explain I need him to help me out which is a big improvement.

Marking place! Thread had dropped from my convos Mad days here with work. Will come back for a catch-up.

Hi all, have been struggling lots with dss1 today, so I thought I'd check in to try to remember what I want to do. I feel like every button has been well and truly pressed today! I'm going back to basics of deep breathing and choosing my battles, trying to focus on letting him make his own choices. I find it very hard because as you would expect dss fights back doubly because I'm not mum, so natural consequences are really useful for avoiding a battle I can't win.

Sometimes its soooo hard not to engage

Hello, all :) Great thread, Bertie, I've found it at just the right stage of my parenting. I'm all about the UP/GP/AP thang but the one thing I struggle with is overpraising and giving too much attention. I know how damaging it can be because my mother was (is) ridiculously overpraising and, as has been described in this thread, made me overcautious and felt like my actions could only be a performance for others. Still struggle with it now.

But of course, growing up with that has made me similar. I have a 14.5 minth old Ds and as a result of my own upbringing, I feel an incredibly strong urge to be telling him he's a good boy, my angel, and so on, all the time even when he's not doing anything, ie, in the baby carrier! I tell him well done, that he's brilliant, the best, a clever boy and so on far too often. I know he doesn't need to be told he's the best boy in the world because he manages to use his spoon once! I'm pretty good at all the other principles the OP lists but I can see how even at his very young age, he is becoming a bit of a praise junkie. When he does certain things, he often looks at me anticipating lots of praise. And part of his unique personality is that he is driven much more than other children of his age I know to fix his mind on certain skills and do them over and over until he masters them, which is pretty praiseworthy behaviour, so it feels mean not to acknowledge what he's done.

Anyway, sorry for the explanatory waffle, what I really want to know is, what positive things can I say to replace praise and my inane stream of flattery? I try to focus on his actions - hey, you're using your spoon! - or stuff like 'you're putting a lot of effort into that' or 'it's hard work, but you're getting it' but then automatically add a well done, clever boy, best boy or similar. Sometimes just say 'yaaaayyy!' if he does really well - does that sound okay? Have just got a Kindle for iPad sample of The Alfie Kohn book on rewards, etc., and if it resonates, will buy the whole thing, but does anyone have any other good suggestions?

The idea is not to use praise to manipulate eg good boy every time he takes a mouthful of veg or to be unspecific or judge in place of the child. 'What an amazing picture!'

But when he really achieves something, like the first time he gets to the top of the climbing frame or gets a first from uni, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a heartfelt, unspecific 'That's brilliant!'

When they really try at something, you can acknowledge their determination without passing a judgement on what they've achieved eg 'you kept on trying and now you can do it!'

At least that's how I understand it.

The best way to get your head around it is, truly, to spy on them See how they deal with achievements when you aren't there. I used to pretend I was on the computer or doing something else, but secretly watch DS when he was trying to do something, for example, build a tower with his stacking cups. He'd get frustrated because putting them on slightly wrong would knock over the whole tower and he got to the point of tears several times, but because I didn't want him to know I was watching, I didn't jump in and say "Oh dear, never mind and fix it for him, I just watched to see what he would do next. (I would never ignore an upset baby/child, but frustration is okay - just to watch, to see if they figure it out by themselves) And he might call out to me for help at this point, but I told him I was busy, and I would come and help him after I had done X thing, but "Why don't you try again?" and often he would still be frustrated, but then, he would try again. After a while he stopped asking for help and would try again by himself, even if he did get frustrated in the middle.

But the interesting part is watching how they deal with it when they do achieve something, and seeing that actually - they're fine, in fact, they're great! They often seem really pleased with themselves (proving they don't need the praise to feel this) however, they don't often have a song-and-dance type reaction to things. It also often seems to spur them on to try more things - whereas I find with praise they tend to then repeat the action which got them the praise rather than using this knowledge to move forward into new discoveries.

So I take from this - I know it's not the same, but if you had a friend who was starting out in something you were experienced in and you were observing them, and you thought they were talented, you wouldn't jump in at every little milestone saying "Yeah!" "OMG, you nailed that!" "You did great!" "Well done!" - you'd probably watch them thinking "Wow, they're good at this!" privately and only join in with the "Wow!" type reactions if they were having them, if that makes sense. Because it is nice to share your achievements with people and if I went up to a friend saying "Guess what? I just did this amazing thing!" I would be quite upset or confused if they didn't come back with "Wow that's amazing! Well done you!" or similar. So of course it's right to share in your children's joy if they express happiness or proudness at a particular achievement, but to impose it on them I think is where it could be problematic.

• Argh - I can't word this right at all and it's bugging me, but I think what I'm trying to say is that this is one of those situations where it is appropriate to treat children like mini adults and to take their lead in whether something is worthy of praise and celebration, unless of course they are the ones looking unsure and looking to you for guidance, then you can highlight the good things you noticed in what they have done. and in other situations just make a factual statement like "You stacked up five blocks, look. One, two, three, four, five." while supressing the urge to jump up and down because yesterday they could barely balance one on top of another.

Bertie, Wilde, somme thanks for your thoughts - I think we're of a mind - I also use 'Thank-you' a lot - and also I thinkl, basically treat DS as i would an adult in these situations - thank-you for being obliging/making my life easier, rather than random - 'good-boy' ...... speaking of which, There's lots of 'good-boy/girl' in our house because of the dogs, which leads me to ...
naughty - I've managed to only say 'that's naughty' to DS once so far, but it's coming in his speach from nursery/childminder - but here's the thing, maybe sometimes he is naughty?? When our dogs run away ( depressingly frequent, bad owner) I'm cross and saying - naughty/bad dog - DS picks up on this - but surely the dogs are naughty as being wilfully disobedient.

When is it appropriate to use naughty to children - my one time of doing was when DS was throwing food/bowls - asked not to do so, kept doing it, warned I would remove food, kept doing it, so I did remove food, so then DS goes to toys and chucks them ( in a fit of pique, as my grannie would have said) - before I could manage 'I can see you're cross, but I did ask you not to throw stuff...' insrtead, out same ' naughty boy!'. Discuss!! My point is that he is old enough I thing to be wilfully disobedient and is there a point where we stop analysing the situation and instead say - that's not acceptable, full stop, no discussion?

I picked up a tip called 'descriptive commenting' whereby you literally commentate on what your child/ren is doing: "you've got the red car, and your putting it on top of the bread-bin". This worked for me in getting out of the habit of continually questioning my son: "whats that? What color is it? Where does it go?" I don't like being questioned like that, so I'm attempting to lessen the habit. I'm aiming at four comments to every question.

Also, I'm not a fan of the good boy/girl thing. What is the child learning from that? Why is he good? What did she do that deserved praise?

It depends on the DC - my DS1 would have been likely to say ' why are you telling me what I am doing?' and look at me as if I was slightly loopy!

In terms of praising 'achievements' I tend to take DS's lead. If he comes to me clearly pleased with what he's done, I'll describe what he's done in an enthusiastic way.

So today, he pointed to his magnetic letters where he'd put 'tcd' and told me he'd written 'Didcote' (in reverse ). He was obviously chuffed with himself, so I said, "Yes, you've written Didcote, haven't you? I can see the D for Did, the C for 'cot' and the T sound at the end." He was very pleased with himself, and added a couple more random letters to create a made-up word for me to read out to him.

If he doesn't come to me proudly, I might describe what he's doing, but in a more matter-of-fact way.

When DS follows a 'rule' I say 'thank you for doing x', or 'you remembered what I said about x - thank you'. I don't do it all the time. I probably do it about as much as I would to DH if he'd remembered to do something I'd asked him to do, or had done some of the housework which is usually my responsibility.

DH is moving from the automatic praise camp into the more descriptive one. He would have naturally tended towards the 'good boy' / 'clever boy' approach, but has gradually learnt to be more descriptive. Today he commented after a hospital visit that it was annoying that all the nurses kept saying 'good boy' to DS. Two years ago he wouldn't even have noticed. :)

catdoctor, we don't use the word 'naughty', but we do tell DS explicitly when he is doing something disobedient or 'breaking' another behavioural 'rule' (rule isn't quite the right word but I can't think of a better one). We're Christians, so all the 'rules' are linked with particular bible verses we've taught him. When we introduce a new 'rule' all we do is tell him that he's doing it [or not, depending on the context], and discuss what the verse says. When we think he's got the idea, we tell him he's doing it, discuss the verse and ask him to say sorry. We'd also rehearse what he could have done differently so he knows what he should have done instead. We talk about feelings too e.g. "It's okay to be upset, but it's not okay to do x. If you're upset, you can do y."

I think giving an alternative is really important - it helps them learn it's okay to express their feelings, but that there are limits on how they should do that.

In your example, I'm not sure a 2 y.o. can easily extrapolate from 'don't throw food' to 'don't throw toys'. My guess would be that he was in a throwing mood. I would have been inclined to remove the food, then when toys got thrown, say, "Toys are for playing with. Balls are for throwing. You can throw balls on the stairs. Shall we go and find some?" (and either remove the toys, or remove him from the toys to make the point). We've had a lot of success with redirection (though DS is a naturally compliant child :)).

Sometimes children don't know when they're misbehaving, even when we think it's obvious. DS will sometimes do things and ask me, "What am I doing?" which means, "Am I doing x [the thing I'm not supposed to do]?" Sometimes he says, "I'm doing x," which means "I think I'm doing x - am I?" I can see how he's developing an ability to identify and critique his own behaviour, and it's entertaining interesting to see how well he understands and applies the various principles.

We've had internet problems for a week and you lot have been talkative while I've been having to live in the real world. Apologies if I've missed things.

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions about the imaginary monsters. We now have 'magic giraffe', a hand puppet we bought at the zoo, and he keeps her safe overnight so she's gone back to sleeping all night in her own bed (well, until about 6am which is supposedly a reasonable time to get up). She seems to have stopped seeing monsters everywhere and her imagination is bringing us much nicer things now.

I do the descriptive commenting thing too. Dp leans more to the 'good girl' thing until I pointed out to him that he sounds just like next door training their puppy (and the way they speak to their toddler too, I can never tell which one they are talking to). He's trying really hard not to say 'good girl' now, but he still wants to praise her a lot more than I do.

I try really hard not to use the word naughty, and think I've succeeded so far. Dp has used it a couple of times until I explained that she really needs to understand what she's done wrong and what she should have done instead which he's taken on board. I think I might be succeeding in training him up, but it's slow going (like training a puppy ) Giving alternatives like Angel does seems to work well for us, so 'we don't throw food, I'll take that away, you can throw a ball if you want but you'll have to go outside to do that' or 'I can see you're upset but we don't hit daddy (she never hits me because she knows I don't put up with it), you can cry if you want to but hitting just makes people sad and cross'.

It's harder going with dd2 than it was dd1 as she seems to be rather more stubborn, but she's getting there.

I tend not to use the word naughty because I don't find it very descriptive, I prefer to tell DS what we should/shouldn't do.

However have been using it a bit recently when "it isn't nice" doesn't seem to make any impact and/or he's asking for a long explanation and I'm too tired .

He's still insisting on blaming the cat for everything.

Finding it hard to catch up these days, I blame work Back later!

Hello - new convert to this way of doing things looking to pick your brains. Hope this is ok.

I have been reading this thread with interest and love how you help out with each others problems.

Feel that if i post in sleep forum I will get a lot of 'reward chart' advice and thats not really my cup of tea.

Ds1 (7) in last couple of weeks has been refusing bedtime - running about, shouting to wake up his brother - anything and everything he can think of until he crashes out at about 10.30.

Initially I dealt with this by the more obvious shouting, return to bed ( which frequently involved an exciting chase for him), and removal of toys / privileges methods. This did not work at all. I would happily have ignored him and let him read quietly in his room but he just will not leave us alone.

So last night I changed my approach and thought I'd assume he wants to go to bed nicely and help him to relax and achieve it. After story I rubbed his back until he was very sleepy, then made and excuse to leave the room and he fell asleep before I came back. He was asleep by 8.30 and I had a lovely evening with dh, the first in a long time.

But at 4.30am I woke up to find DS wide awake in his bedroom. He didn't go back to sleep. We just kept quietly putting him back in his room, and in the end he settled down with his books at about 6am then came back in at 6.30 which is when his gro clock changes colour.

So now instead of us having a stressful evening but DS getting around 10 hours sleep, we had a lovely evening aNd he had just 8 hours sleep.

I am so tired, but want to get a plan together for this so that in my sleep deprived state I don't go back to 'get back to bed or no tv.....i'll take away your toy etc etc'.

Help from anyone appreciated but especially those with experience of kids ds's age as I am finding sleep advice for older kids really hard to come by.

Latte how about talking to him during the day and seeing if there is anything he would find useful to help him stay in his own bed and stay asleep? Has anything changed that makes it harder for him (new baby, house move, worried about teacher next year, etc)? Could he just be unsettled due to the change in routine with it being school holidays? Maybe if you can manage to find out what is upsetting/unsettling him then you can put figure out how to help him with it. I am a great believer in finding the reason behind the behaviour rather than just focussing on fixing the behaviour.

Now, anyone have any ideas about how to tackle a 12 yo who doesn't think it's important to let me know where she is? Dd1 went out this afternoon saying 'I'm just going to call on x' which is fine, I know where x lives, have her phone number, etc am perfectly happy to let her go to see her friends. Almost an hour later x and another friend turned up on my doorstep asking for dd1. So I had no idea where she was, tried phoning her, no answer, texting, no answer. I was getting concerned about where she might have got to as well as annoyed that she wasn't answering her phone or where she was supposed to be. 15 mins later dd1 and x and y arrived back home, her friends said they'd found her, she made no apology for not being where she was supposed to be or for not answering her phone. She says she was with another friend, which I would also have been fine with as long as I knew about it

So what would you do to help her 'get it' that I need to know where she is? I also don't know whether I can trust her when she tells me where she's been as she has a history of lying to me. She was caught truanting at Easter, due to bullying, which we sorted out with school but I'd had no idea she was lying about what she'd done at school (she'd even made scones at home because she was supposed to be making them at school that day) so she's turning into quite an accomplished liar and I never know when she's telling the truth. Obviously I don't want to stop her going to see her friends (in fact I'd like her to do more of it as she'd just hang around in her bedroom reading books all day if she had her way). When I've tried to talk to her she just does the 'yes, you want to keep me safe, etc' so she says all the right things but she doesn't act on them, she also does the teenage eye roll they are all so good at. Grr.

LargeLatte my DS is only a toddler so don't have experience of dealing with a 7 year old's sleep issues as a parent, but I hated going to bed when I was young and was pretty difficult
What eventually made the difference (I may have been older than 7 but not by loads) is that I would spend the time lying in bed before falling asleep (which was previously very boring and frustrating, so I would rebel if possible) making up imaginary stories in an imaginary world. I then found that I would actually look forward to going to bed so I could get back to my imaginary world.
Obviously this probably wouldn't work for every child, but perhaps if you could encourage your DS to try it - maybe based on a book or tv programme he likes, then it might work. He could also use it to help him stay in bed and get back to sleep if he wakes in the night.

I had a tricky situation with DS today (he's nearly 2). We'd gone out to a group and then left (DS wanted to leave). I tried to put him in his car seat but he resisted (I think he wanted to go in the front seat - DH has let him play in the front seat a few times recently, when stationary of course). I probably could have forced him into the seat with difficulty, but it would have involved a lot of force and felt very brutal (he's pretty strong). I tried offering him his toy, giving him a choice of whether we went home or to the shops. I then let him have a little wander around the car park. Then took him back to the car and basically bribed him with a snack to get into his seat (which worked).

Any suggestions on how to handle this if it happens again?

Tell him that he has a choice-he stays with the group or he gets in his car seat!
Have body language which says that you expect him to make a choice.
Once you have more than one DC you can't pander in this way! I would be cheesed off if I was ready to go and my brother was having a sulk over where he sat-I would want him ignored!

You do have to change when you have more than one child. If one wants to stay and one wants to go you have to upset one. Small children don't take compromise easily so if you say 'we will go earlier than the rest, but we will have a bit longer now' they both get upset!!

Largelatte, what about if you let him stay up a little with you as he's not sleepy, just half an hour extra playing cards or whatever some other quiet activity, and then he can do anything he wants in his room as long as it is quiet? (Lego, drawing, reading) He gets a bit of special time with you, satisfies his curiosity about what goes on after bedtime, he gets to decide when he actually gets into bed but at the same time you make it clear that you and your DH need time alone together.

The holidays are a good time for teaching them to take responsability for their own bed time. DS actually chose to get into bed earlier tonight because for the past two days he has slept in past his favourite TV show.

Our DS refused bedtime for a while and I think perhaps he had picked up on the fact that we were always really eager for 'adult time' to start. So by doing something with him we were able to reassure him that we also enjoyed his company.

It may be that the noisy behaviour is 'attention seeking' in which case hopefully giving him attention should cure it but it may be that he needs to use up some energy so if that's the case, maybe one of you could go for an evening walk/cycle ride with him.

Absolutely tire them out is the answer to everything! Evening cycle ride or walk all weathers will do the trick-and be good for the adults!