Unconditional Parenting in a nutshell (I know this is incredibly lazy)

[SuperBunny]

I am embarrassed to do this but I haven't been able to read the book and need some quick Dos and Don'ts til I can get hold of the book again.

I have read some of the old threads but was really hoping that some nice person could give me a couple of bullet points about unconditional parenting.

I will be very grateful.

I'd say it's the one real mistake she made in her parenting. Otherwise, she was great: I have every respect for the way I was parented, and try to copy it as best I can, but I am an awful lot tougher about insisting my dcs get medical treatment.

Which is just as well as both my dcs have a joint disorder: if I did not force them to wear their insoles and do their physio, they would deteriorate very quickly; dd is in a wheelchair as it is.

I think that perhaps when you were young,cory, people were less confident in challenging opinion-I find that you do have to be fairly tough and persistent, it must be even more so if you have SN.

I would actually agree with ommmward to quite a large extent but I have drawn different conclusions from it. I feel very fallible and I may be completely wrong. I wouldn't have the confidence to HE, for example,because it leaves my DCs almost totally dependent on my philosophies-I prefer the 'it takes a village to raise a child' route and have them exposed to lots of different adults with different views and philosophies.It is the big decisions that worry me.
I am perfectly confident that I am right on cleaning teeth, getting dressed in the morning, not pulling the cats tail, not playing with a siblings cherished possession without permission etc and so they will do it my way.
It doesn't mean I use physical force! I will make it a game, use jokes, distraction etc, but it will get done. Mainly for the simple fact it is boring-I want to be free to do fun things with my DCs, I don't want to slow us up with endless negotiation about putting clothes on! There are lots of things that a 2 year old may think reasonable as in running into the road but I am not going to let them do it! If they pull the cat's tail they will probably get the natural consequence that the cat bites them but it isn't fair on the cat-I would stop it before it got to that stage and get some empathy for the cat.
Above all I believe in some empathy for mum, if she has spent the best part of a week painting the lounge-they are not going to draw on the walls with felt pens!
My parents did a pretty good job of bringing us up so I copy the method-I haven't found a better one.
I give my DCs unconditional love,security,lots of time and open communication-I don't think that you can go far wrong with it.

Agreeing with you once again, Piscesmoon.
Good post.

it is very hard also to break out of how you were parented. My parents were overly regimented and achievement based, although very loving, so I am far too anxious to please and think something MUST be wrong if I"m doing it for my own enjoyment or whatever. I don't want my kids to be like that. however, I also want a reasonably civilised home and for them to be able to go out in society and fit in and feel happy, and not be little b*ggers!

I still think that people like being praised because it is human nature and nothing to do with conditioning to like it.
If you were never praised as a child surely you would glow the first time that someone praised you as an adult?
Like with anything, when it is misused it looses meaning but most people are sensible enough not to do that.

Cory, it must be really hard with things like physio. I guess though that you have a professional opinion from their doctors as to what has to happen, so it is not your deciding as to what must be done IYSWIM.

So I guess if your mum had insisted on taking you to an optician she wouldn't have been excluding the possibility of you being right (ie there was no problem) and her being wrong - the two of you would have been getting an outside opinion to resolve a disagreement?

Luckily on a much less critical issue, we have had a similar situation with dd's teeth - we agreed as a family to visit the dentist and get his opinion, which I have to say dd has been willing to go along with (unfortunately partly because his second alternative to a lot of cleaning, flossing and nasty tasting mouthwash was extracting several teeth and putting in braces!)

I think that it is damaging not to give praise. I'm sure that a lot of the young offenders are in trouble with the law because no one has ever thanked them, appreciated them or praised them.
I find that I do it automatically to everyone, of every age-not just DCs and I can't imagine not doing it-I would have to zip my lips!
Even on here,where it shouldn't matter because I don't know anyone,it makes a great difference to switch on the computer and find someone saying 'good post'-especially when juuule and I generally pull each other's posts apart piece by piece!
DCs aren't silly-they know whether they deserve it and it is very sad for them if they have really tried hard over something and no one is going to enthuse and praise. (I'm still not sure if I understand that part of UP-maybe I have the wrong idea).

Thanking and appreciating aren't the same as praise.

I would call someone saying 'good post' praise. I would call going into someone's classroom and saying to the teacher 'that display looks great what a fantastic idea' praise. I would call going to my mothers and saying 'wow-you have been busy, the garden looks lovely', praise. I would call saying to a DC, 'thank you for tidying up you have made a wonderful job of it' praise. Maybe I don't understand it, and we are talking about 2 different things.

takver, the problem was that I refused to let my Mum get a third opinion

not because I did not think there was anything wrong

but because I knew there was something wrong, knew it could be proved and that the optician would make me wear glasses, which I thought was uncool

I was quite willing to risk my eyesight in the future (45 seems such a long way off when you're 8) as long as I could get my way at the time

because I was a silly vain little girl who should not have been allowed to decide these things

my dd has also tried to get out of medical visits, though generally (to do her justice) out of fear rather than vanity

worrying more about the unpleasantness of the moment than the 60 or 70 years ahead of her

I have dragged her there by force

my Mum for unknown reasons did not feel up to doing that, though I know she was very uncomfortable about it at the time and desperately tried to persuade me

so it was my decision- not to have a third opinion- which prevailed

and my decision was wrong because I was immature

I think most DCs would be the same cory. If my mother hadn't 'forced' me to the opticians I would have carried on pretending that I could see. I didn't want to wear glasses and that was all that mattered to me.

Noone has come back about the praise which I still don't unnderstand. For example, yesterday in school I had 8 and 9 yr olds drawing shoes, pencils only. One girls drawing was far better than anything I could possibly produce. I said 'wow-that's fantastic-I wish I could draw like that!' and I asked her if I could show it to the others. She positively glowed with pleasure and she let me show the rest who were suitably impressed and we discussed what was good about it. Is this supposed to be wrong? I am not going to stop doing it but I am wondering if we are talking about the same thing when we mention praise.

I suppose with the praise thing it's just keeping a sensible balance and not 'falsely' praising everything the kid does, or making the child too dependent on praise, doing things just to get praised. But I wouldn't have thought that would be an issue in most families, only if there is an unhealthy emphasis on rewards etc.

An earlier post suggests that if we want praise as adults, this is a sign that we are somehow damaged by our early upbringing.

But what else would motivate people to go through the long, hard, largely unpaid slog to become a writer, a composer, an actor, an inventor, a researcher?

Of course I write in the hopes of a favourable review. Of course an actor performs in the hope of applause. What else would keep us going? And would the world not be the poorer if none of us did keep going?

It is not just that I am vain and have been conditioned to expect praise. It is also that if I feel the 10 years I have spent writing my book are to be worth it, it needs to be a good book. And after 10 years of staring at the wretched thing, I no longer entirely trust my own judgment on that.

'Externally-initiated praise is TERRIBLE FOR YOUR SELF-ESTEEM. But when you know that you've earned praise - when you know that you've done something marvellous - then it's lovely to have that recognised. The impetus for the celebration came from within you and you invited others to share in it. You didn't invite others to judge and praise. You don't need the judgement and praise - you did that step for yourself. And your self esteem remains intact.'

This is the bit that intrigues me and I wish that ommmward would come back and explain.
I feel that man is a social animal and doesn't operate well in isolation, for example hostages that are held in solitary confinement have great problems when they come back into normal society. They have to be very strong to withstand it. They need other people-I think that Brian Keenan and John McCarthy survived all the years in captivity because if one gave up they had the other praising them and saying how well they were doing and they must keep going.The children in the cellar in Austria had their mother trying to make things normal for them-could they have ever emerged a normal person if they hadn't had that? The social group gives them cues on how to behave. My question to ommmward is -would a DC know that they had done something marvellous if they hadn't picked up cues from adults? How would they know it was marvellous? A 2 yr old could go into a public park and pull off all the heads from a bed of tulips and make a lovely big pink pile and then have a lovely time jumping on them and throwing them around! They have had fun and may think it is a wonderful thing and invite others to celebrate. Surely they pick up how to behave from the social cues and praise and censure? Someone needs to explain that although they found it fun, they have deprived lots of people of the the pleasure of the tulips and destroyed someone's hard work and that it wasn't something to celebrate.

Ommmward brought in the autistic DC, which I thought at the time was a complete red herring,however thinking about it, it seems very relevent. My understanding is that the autistic DC can operate well on lots of levels, exceptionally well sometimes, but that their problem is a social one because they can't pick up on the normal social clues. They can't understand other people's feelings and they can't read other people's emotions; because of this they need a fairly rigid structure so that they know what is happening and whereas most of us would like the unexpected of, 'its a lovely day, let's leave everything and go to the seaside'they would find it bewildering and upsetting.
We read a tremendous amount into body language and what people don't say, and this is closed to the autistic DC-a great handicap.
I think that a DC needs the group praise and censure to know, within themselves, what is worthy of celebration.
I would think that the DCs of TCS get a lot from the non verbal cues given out by the parents-the cues they don't even realise they are giving.

cory's book is a good example. She may think it is wonderful, but it is the praise of others that will tell her whether she is correct.I don't think that you can be objective yourself , after 10 yrs it is a bit like your baby!

I'm still here

Not quite sure what you want me to explain.

ask a question and I'll do my best to answer it

I am glad you are back. What I want to know is -would a DC know that they had done something marvellous if they didn't pick up cues from adults? As in my tulip scenario-it could seem marvellous to a 2 yr old to rip the heads off but it isn't to anyone else-except possibly another 2 yr old.

Can I wiggle away from your tulips for a second? I'll come back to them.

Let's take, instead, a child learning to stand. It's a pretty massive and marvellous thing. I think you are asking whether a child would feel a sense of achievement about it if people didn't say "Oh my God! You can stand! Well done you!!!!". My answer is: yes, they would feel a sense of achievement because, at long last, they can reach a toy that they desperately want to reach.

But think about what happens next:

1. They reach the toy. They turn to you with a huge grin and you grin back "you stood up and reached the toy!" they don't need to be told "well done!" it's all there in their grin and your responsive grin.

What's wrong with saying "well done for standing up!"? Well, it assumes that you know what the child was aiming at. This is a good example actually.

Child stands for the first time. Then child SITS BACK DOWN with the desired toy. NOW they turn to you with a look of pride. It wasn't the standing they were so pleased to achieve, it was the toy getting. "You got the toy!" you say, and it's all their in their grin and your responsive grin.

If your child stood for the first and you were busy saying "Well done you!" before they'd turned to you to celebrate, then it's you deciding what is worthy of congratulation and celebration, and that might be completely at odds with the thing the child was wanting to achieve themself. So you hijack their own sense of pride by congratulating them for THE WRONG THING!!!!

That's why I think the impetus for such a celebration has to come from the child to be most valuable.

Back to the tulips... but that doesn't mean that we should just leave our children to get on with whatever anti-social things they might want to do and then celebrate with them when they've ripped the heads off a bed of tulips. In the flower-ripping phase of a child's life, it's much better either for a parent to find a place where flower ripping is positively welcomed (no gardener is going to complain at you ripping heads off the daisies and dandelions in his lawn ) or else to suggest something to the child that they'd like to do MORE than they want to do the flower ripping. And of course it's accompanied by "those are precious. Let's leave them alone because they are not ours. Here's something better to do". Only more likely the words will be "precious! not ours! bread for the ducks!" or even just "hey! Ducks!!!" if it's a 2 year old

I'm thinking that yes, children do pick up social cues, and some of it is inexplicit and some of it is explicit, but none of it has to be a judgment of the child. "don't pick the flowers you 'orrible infant" is less constructive as someone learns to navigate the world than something like "those aren't ours... let's do X instead" or "those are precious.. let's do X instead"

and all of this with a weather eye out for the 2 year old who actually only wants to pick one flower and is competely determined about it and really, ffs, what does it matter if they do?

""You got the toy!" you say, and it's all their in their grin and your responsive grin."

But how it's said and the tone of voice and facial expression are all praise, aren't they? Just because the actual words aren't 'well done' doesn't mean that it's not a congratulatory act (praise?)

As for picking flowers.
If the distraction didn't work, then I would have carried the child away from the tulips. I'd have gone over why picking those flowers wasn't a good idea. Some of what I said might have gone in but at 2yo some of it might not have done.

"and really, ffs, what does it matter if they do"

In the park situation where the flowers are for all to enjoy, I would say yes it does matter.

Also in the toy scenario, I would think that if I was watching my child, I would have a very good idea that the child's aim was to reach the toy. I wouldn't wade in with my assumption of what was worthy of praise without noticing what it was that was being attempted. I probably would have been watching previous attempts to reach the toy.

I see no problem with warranted praise/encouragement.
I think the problem comes with praise used to coerce and flattery for the givers own ends.

It's all a question of who started it. If a child says to themself (a la Mickey Mouse) "you're pretty good at this!" that might well be a cue to join in "yeah, alllllriiiiiight!"

The problem is when the adult is deciding what is praiseworthy. I don't think we'd find ourselves disagreeing IRL at all about this, Juuule.

I have to say, this discussion has been just tremendously valuable for me - because one gets into rather thoughtless habits where one isn't really engaging with a child but just making encouraging sounds, and it has been reeeeeaaaaly reaeeeeeaaaally good in the last couple of days to start noticing myself doing it and begin to unweave the bad habit. What begins as semi-ironic mimicry of pbs kids.com turns into regular discourse, yk? So thank you everyone, from the bottom of my heart (that's not praise. That's gratitude! )

yeah, you're right Juuule, it's pretty likely that picking the flowers wouldn't be a good idea and one would do one's utmost to find an acceptable alternative. I was just musing about what happens when we get really stuck and flustered with a screaming child and sometimes in that scenario, really, is one flower going to matter if it makes us happy as well as all the people trying to enjoy the sunshine around us? It's not always totally black and white that the socially unusual is completely out of bounds, I think.

I think that you are actually cuing your DC but it isn't verbal. People pick up so much from an early age with signals that they don't even know they are giving or receiving. You might not like it, and you might pretend you don't do it,but if you were to meet me you would have gathered up, and made assumptions about me in the first 2 seconds! They might be wrong and you might revise them but that first judgement is automatic. I didn't have problems with mine getting dressed because my whole non verbal message was that it was expected-it was no big deal and they would do it!
Your DC has known you from the womb, they have your genes and your nurturing and they want to please you. If you are passionate about any method it will suit you and will probably suit your DC.
I said that it would make me deeply unhappy as a DC and it is dismissed by you as if it is just the product of my (wrong)upbringing. To a certain extent it is but I think that nature is stronger than nurture, which is why separated identical twins turn out similar, and I know that it would have been wrong for me as a DC.
You could guess from my name that I am interested in astrology. I am actually an Aries and all my DSs are all fire signs too and I think that, because we are compatible, I provide the sort of nurturing that suits them. I might have problems with a different type of DC. You have to adapt to the DC, my brothers and I are so completely different you would wonder that we came from the same family!

Even at 2 yrs I would go with empathy, so I would explain that the tulips were living things and they will now die before they should, that they are very beautiful and lots of people like to look at them and that someone has worked very hard to plant them so that we can all watch them grow and flower.

I wonder how you would cope with a DC like me who would be up and dressed (I was a very independent DC) and saying 'it's not fair-you said we could do xxxx and yyy won't get dressed-can you make him get ready?'

I also get the impression that with TCS you respect the DC and their views, but you expect the views to match yours.If they are very,very different from yours the age card is played and they aren't old enough to make up their own mind.

What do you do with e.g.
The 6 yr old who has good friends who go to school and is insistent that they want to go?
The 9 yr old who wants to join the local under 10's football team and wants to be top of the league and win man of the match?
The 7 year old who wants to go to swimming lessons and win certificates and wants the badges sewn on their costume so that everyone can see?
The 15 yr old who wants to win gold medals for dancing?
The DC who wants to be centre stage in the local drama club and loves the limelight and applause?

This is all to do with judging and outside praise.
I appreciate that you may never produce this sort of DC because of your methods-but are you saying that seeking praise in these ways is wrong for all DCs?

the 6 year old - would go to school unless that had a massively bad impact on the rest of the family in some way (like, prevented everyone going to china for a year or something, in which case the famiy would need to work together to find a solution everyone was happy with, like go to school in china, maybe, I don't know)

all the rest: are they seeking the praise or the achievement? I'm not saying either is necessarily wrong, but they are different. There's praise for praise's sake, and there's an achievement which others recognise.

The thing I said earlier that the important thing is who decides that something is worthy of praise, and that I think the person who should decide is the person about to receive the shower of congratulations - do you think that is wrong or right or do you think it is a fantasy, that it's always people outside oneself who show one, explicitly or inexplicitly, that it's time to smile in pride?

Just as an example of different types of DC.
One of the funniest things that I saw was when DS3 was in the rugby club at junior school.
His school was very non competitive, taking part was the important thing. The club was made up of anyone who wanted to join, girls or boys. It was run by a female teacher, not particularly sporty.
She decided a match would be nice for them. They went to play the local private school. I stood on the sidelines to be supportive of DS.
The private school side came out-all boys, the right number with 2 subs-obviously the best in the school. They were with their coach an ex army rugby player.
Our side kept stopping to give everyone a go-in the interests of fairness. The rugby coach lookedon in amazement.
The score difference was tremendous-I will leave you to work out the winning team!!

Now this didn't matter to DS3,he wasn't very good anyway and the score wasn't important to him. My highly competitive, sporty DS2 would have been devastated-he would have felt let down and that his school should have put forward a strong team .

It was the right game for DS3 but the wrong game for DS2. I don't think you can say, in general, that it was right or wrong-except that perhaps she should have chosen to play a school with a similar philosophy.

The non competitive bit has it's good points but it isn't going to produce world class rugby players!

I think it is the person outside yourself who shows when it is right to smile with pride.
I think that you are doing it in a way that you, and your child, are not consciously aware of ommmward but it works in the same way as verbal praise. You want to do your best for your DC and your DC wants to please you-I would have thought it was the same in any family, we just have different methods.