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.

Ommward, I'm not sure that I could live with a top-down child agenda, though, where the child is forcing my compliance with their wishes. There needs to be respect in both directions and sometimes that means that I concede to them and sometimes they have to concede to me. Some things just have to be done so that everyone gets a fair share.

I mentioned TCS earlier, but not so overtly

It's not about something that 'works' hopeforthebest, it's about a philosophy of life. Why isn't 'child bathes whenever he wants to' a solution? What actually would happen to a child that didn't bathe very often? They'd get very grubby.

TCS isn't about letting children do whatever they want, it's about taking them as seriously as you would like to be taken yourself and taking yourself that seriously too. You don't self-sacrifice, but you do try to remain open minded to the idea that you may be wrong, and that there is an answer out there somewhere that means no one is unhappy or compromising. If you haven't found it, it's because you couldn't, not because it doesn't exist.

And you're right about us knowing more than the children, that's why our job is giving children the benefit of our experience and knowledge. Children aren't inherently irrational - they do know when something really is an important issue (although IME, sometimes children with SN don't pick up on these things so well).

My children, for example, will listen to me when I say that if they run in the road they may get hit by a car and seriously hurt, like the coke can we saw being run over recently, or the roadkill you see on the verge sometimes - and they've 'got' this very, very young - and before that age they've had their buggy or sling made a very pleasant place to be so they've preferred to be in that safer place for road-side journeys.

On the other hand, they don't do what I ask when I'm asking them to do something not so important, like getting dressed in the morning. Although they will get dressed as they walk out the door, so they know when it is a bit more important (socially so!).

And Juule - TCS philosophy agrees with you. It does disagrees that anyone should be coercing anyone into doing anything be that adults coercing children or vice versa.

I just think that there are situations where everyone can't have it their way. Where someone has to compromise and if that person doesn't want to, what then?

100 we always said the soup thing too
ds1 would say it very mournfully when he was about 3 "and then i could only eat SOUP"

Usually, I think, that only really happens when the people in the situation aren't all trying to be open minded and actively seek a solution together. In reality it happens all the time, but in theory, and it's a theory I believe in, it should be possible nearly all the time.

There is an email list for people who want to discuss the TCS philosophy and it's fascinating and eye-opening the ideas people come up with to solve a problem. The problem, I find, is that it's hard when you're the only adult doing the thinking, but I often hand it over to my children and they come up with great ideas!

And an awful lot of things we think we need to make our children/toddlers do, actually we don't need to, we do things just because...

"it should be possible nearly all the time."

I agree with that.

"If you haven't found it, it's because you couldn't, not because it doesn't exist."

But I can't agree with this. I just think that a solution that leaves everybody happy every time sometimes doesn't exist.

I've just read that link, and it seems to me that the consensual solutions where the child ends up doing what the parent requested but in a different way and/or after obtaining information about the issue are the same as in 'How to talk where kids will listen'. Or as Cumili puts it "a practical (and kind) way of making them do what they didn't want to do".

Obviously the bit where the child simply doesn't have the bath or take the medicine takes children goes alot further!

Ok, sometimes - but still rarely, I think.

Put it this way, I used to be very, very sceptical of TCS, but the more I read in terms of articles, and discussion on the email list, the more I understand it and actually believe that it really is rare that there isn't a solution to be found. The trouble is that effective problem solving can be blocked by someone being stubborn in terms of refusing to think that they might change their mind happily - not compromise.

In those consensual situations, the child didn't want to do it but eventually does want to.

Otherside - How to Talk is a 'method' of getting children to do what you want them to do. TCS is an actual philosophy of living - the 'children' part is misleading, but important, because, all too often, it's children who are coerced into doing things just because they're children.

And forgot to say, How To Talk methods are very helpful, and I use them a lot knowing that sometimes my children do say 'no' simply because they are feeling coerced when actually they are not, it's just because I've worded it wrongly IYSWIM.

I agree with you Juule.

It's like the bedtime thing. Most children have to go to bed at x o'clock because they have school the next day. If the child wants to have a varied bedtime but not suffer the next day, you can homeschool. But if neither of the parents want to homeschool or both parents have to work, you just have to find a way of making the child understand how important it is to get to sleep by o'clock and make bedtime as conducive to sleep as possible.

I just fail to see the difference between the 'problem solving' bit of 'how to talk' and the TCS.

But admittedly the only thing I've read about TCS is that link.

To tell you the truth, I didn't 'get' TCS for years, and also actively fought it because I just thought it really was a load of crap. But I find the more my DH and I try to live TCS, the happier our whole family life is and the more 'mature' our children seem.

"The trouble is that effective problem solving can be blocked by someone being stubborn in terms of refusing to think that they might change their mind happily - not compromise."

Absolutely. But the someone refusing to change their mind happily might be my child. If my teen wanted to do something which I thought wasn't safe and I had explained my concerns and listened to their ideas and I still felt that the situation wouldn't be good for them but they were unbending even after everything that had been said, should I really let them do what they want or should I say no (with regret, with understanding etc) but no all the same.

Got to go watch Victorian Farm now but will be back to see if this very interesting discussion has continued

Hopefully Ommmward will be back soon to explain things better - she's been living the philosophy far longer than me!

UP isn't about letting your children do what they want when they want all the time though.
as AK says, the more valued they feel (ie, by you taking their feelings into consideration/letting them make decisions etc) then the more likely they are to listen to you as well.

i mean if I was in a relationship with someone who never listened to my point of view, always insisted on getting their own way and who I didn't feel valued me then I'd be unlikely to want to do anything they asked me.

if however I felt I was on more of an equal footing then i'd be much more likely to do things they asked me to, knowing that they would do the same for me.

Now, I realise it isn't that straightforward with a child. but this isn't about quick fixes is it? it's about what you want a child to have learnt at the end of it/.
we can all say "get dressed now or I'll take all your toys away/smack you/whatever" and a child will do it. but what have they learned?

there ARE ways to get your child to comply without having to resort to rewards/punishments.
for example.
"ds1. it is 5 minutes until bedtime. you need to get undressed now, so that you'll be comfy in bed"

nothing happens

"ds1, it's bedtime in just a couple of minutes now. would you like some help getting undressed?"

nothing happens

"ds1, it's bedtime now, let's get you into bed otherwise you'll be tired in the morning"

pj's are left beside his bed if he decides he wants to change.

so you put him into bed surely?

maybe you could find a different way of washing him?
a strip wash? a shower? washing in a bucket in the garden?

or maybe you have a rule like friday night is bath night. explain that there WILL be a bath on friday night but he can choose if to have it before or after dinner, whether or not to have bubbles in it, what towel he gets etc etc etc

"but he can choose if to have it before or after dinner, whether or not to have bubbles in it, what towel he gets etc etc etc!"

Oooh isn't that cheating? He's not really got a choice has he?

my prob with all this is that as a parent, aren't you trying to prepare your child for life in society? So in society there are rewards and punishments. There are rules of behaviour and if you break them, you are punished. Also, there are rewards worth having and you need to strategise to get them.

I see parenting as partly being the child's first kind of authority/guidance figure, helping them to reach autonomy and also giving them a certain view of the world which will stay with them for their whole lives, (something that you can't avoid). So as far as a small child is concerned you are the state, you are the government as it were. You are the rules, the rule of law. It's up to you to be reasonable and respectful of the child and to teach them to develop their own sense of responsibility. BUT I really believe you should guide them in what you think is acceptable and not acceptable, it won't be perfect but you have to do your best. That's how I see it. Later as they get older and grow up, your little 'authority' is superceded by the real one of the outer world. So I think children need a kind of gentle, small scale and kinder mirror of that outside world, otherwise won't they just be very egotistical and unrealistic when they go into the world? Isn't life all about compromising and getting on with others?