The Unconditional Parent -- is this bollocks or for real?

[oregonianabroad]

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but am torn between thinking it is totally revolutionary, and then the next minute I think the guy is smoking crack and wouldn't last 2 minutes with my ds. (of course, he would have an answer for that, another of the things that turns me off about his argument).

It also seems clear that he evaluated all the books on the market and decided to write one with a radically different approach (a discipline book about how not to use rewards/ time outs??? how novel!).

SInce I bought the book on the basis of a few recommendations here, I am interested to hear what you lot think.

I'm sure you had heard of the practice. It used to be called "being sent to your room".

I think the book has some interesting ideas but I can see how it might be demoralising if one's own parenting experiences were very different to this - it might seem very counterintuitive and requiring full on concentration and energy.
the aspect I don't really agree with is the praise. I think there is a place for praise, and can be separating from conditionality (is that the right word?).
I think praise can be an expression of love. and should be

I don't do time out/naughty step but I do "go and sit at the bottom of the stairs" if things are getting very fraught, generally just to move a situation on a bit. I don't leave a child there, just go and talk to her about what has just happened and what should happen next and for her to calm down.
I should say my elder dd is four and I haven't sat her at the bottom of the stairs for a year probably. I don't know what I will do whne she is older, hard to say until you get there

I have read Kohn's book, I could write essays on how much I hated that book, how useless it is...

And yes, it's very explicit in saying what a bad thing any kind of praise is, including even the tiniest compliment. This falls into the category of manipulating your children by implying that your love might be conditional (parents trying to shape their children's behaviour, what a daft idea, eh?!)

Is that his name? It's ringing bells now. Anti-homework. Thinks shouting "well done" is damaging. Very media friendly. Is that the guy?

Yes, that's the point. I don't need to read it. It sounds like how I am and how my parents were so it's very intuitive to me whereas for someone for whom it is very different from their ethos, just don't bother reading it because it's not for you.

By the way never sent a child to their room nor been sent their myself. People just differ in how they bring up children.

I certainly am not against praise but I do think there is far far too much over praising of things that aren't worth praise which kind of downplays it when you do praise. Also we shouldn't praise the child for something they can't really help or be praising the clever one and not the thick one when they're both trying.

Xenia, I wasn't suggesting that you had been or advocating the time out method, just pointing out that it's been around for ages under a different name.

Lately I've been sending the older children upstairs just so they will stop trying to wind up the youngest. Always very impressed by families where all siblings get along blissfully at all times.

I don't think they really exist. I remember even the Walton kids having disputes.

OK, here's an example from this morning:

a friend of mine's mother is ill in hospital, so we agreed to go to her house to watch her little boy, who is the same age as my ds1. Ds1 very excited about this.

In the 4 minutes (or less) it took me to rush upstairs to pack a few things into a bag, he had removed all the books from the bottom of the bookcase in the living room and thrown them all over the room, including the scrabble set (tiles everywhere). When I tired to remain calm and asked him to help me tidy up, he screamed NOOOOOOO and continued to throw things. Not wanting to be late, I just got him in the car and drove in silence to friend's house (I was wishing I could have said we weren't going unless he tidied but I knew I couldn't follow through.

How do I deal with this? We are now at friend's imaculate house and he is throwing stuff all over. Can't leave.... Have tried Kohn's approach... HELP ME.

I have come to this quite late, and haven't read the book, though am thinking I may have to go out and get it now.

So far, I have been lucky with my children (7 and 3), they don't fight, physically, they do disagree, and I normally leave them to deal with it between them, if it seems to be getting out of hand I will intervene and try to make them both understand why the other is annoyed, so 'punishment' has never been needed in these situations, I don't know if it is because they are so different in personality that they don't clash or if it is the way I dealt with DD when Ds was born, and then DS has taken her lead, I am pregnant with no.3 so I'm sure I'll find out.

I do discipline mine with 'time outs' although they are not 'sent away' for being naughty, they are told to go and calm down and think about why what they did was wrong, there is no set time they have to be there, just until they can talk to me properly about it.

I also praise my children for things they do that are good, if we have been out for dinner for example I will thank them when we leave for being grown up and allowing me to enjoy the meal.

Children are children, they have a different understanding to us, and should be allowed to express it, a child having a tantrum is rarely actually 'naughty' just frustrated.

So IMO, there are times and places for 'praise/punishment' but it depends on how you use them. DD knows the rules and understands why they shouldn't be broken, she also knows if she wanst to discuss something with me, such as 'why' then she can do, and I will listen, DS isn't at that stage yet, but when he is told I'm not happy with his behaviour and I want him to go and calm down and think about why the first thing he says is 'you still love me, mummy angry but still love me' so I do think it is possibel to use such 'punishments' without making the child feel unloved.

Like I said though I haven't read the book so I only know what has been said on this thread.

I agree with Franny. Children do not have fully developed brains. They can't behave like adults. They live mostly in the present and can't 'read a situation' or think ahead.

Many of us on here have described having neurotic / perfectionist tendancies or feelings of low self worth which many psychologists attribute to the emphasis on 'being good' and 'high achievement' in childhood.

Maybe we should cut our kids some slack.

Since this thread started I've read a bit of Kohn's stuff and I can see some of what he's getting at.

Like xenia we've never used time out/ naughty step etc. - just alien to us somehow.

When I noticed a teacher friend of mine praising her children for everything, I did briefly try it out on my then 2 year old dd. She said that she would only go to the toilet if me and her dad did NOT praise (i.e. fuss and say 'good girl') every time she went. She seemed satisfied herself that she had achieved what she wanted to achieve.

And I guess that's where I would agree with Kohn. The place of praise is to support achievement like you would a fellow human being, not reward like training a dog to do something you want it to do.

Bless her. Your DD sounds like my DS. He says'stop saying that' if we say 'good boy' all the time.

He does however like it to be noticed when he does something he is proud of.

Oregonian -- what a stress! I know what I would do, which is restrain my child if necessary, but how that fits in with Kohn's ideas, who knows? That's my biggest beef, he knocks down every other parenting method and offers nothing instead.

Haven't read the book or, indeed, any parenting book

Sounds like he is saying to have a relationship with your child

I have never used any punishments

its interesitn ginst it
i may get it out

go di haev been through it all wiht mine and vaguely give them stickers for random acts of kindness btu they dont relaly add up to anything, they just liek stickign htem on.

whne they are2 the whoel thign is SO mcuh trickier as they are so un predicatable and hard to control adn so driven by hunger or tiredness arent they?
now i have no system to behaviour - dh models lovely kind considerate bhaviour, and i try to emulate it

we dont hit, very rarely send to rooms, and they dont really argue and NEVER fight between themselves so i kind of agree wiht the idea of modelling.

lets face it kids get attidtude and belligernence from somewhere....

I think he is right in pointing out that we expect our little ones to almost be mini adults these days.
Of course they need told if their behaviour is distressing others but we can do this by way of explanation. It does worry me that the motive for a lot of obedient/good behaviour is only to gain praise/rewards from parents/carers(or maybe out of fear).
Personally, time out/naughty step felt too strange for me to implement but so did controlled crying or taking toys away. I always tried to explain things first but when my eldest child hit 3 and I found her harder to control I found myself using threats to control her ( If you do that you can't have...we won't go to..) I have realised recently that this is wrong and stifling for us both.It's lazy, IMO.

Seems like a lot of people are interested in the theory but don't know how to put it into practise.

I would love it if those who have read the book and have faith in it could give us some idea of how they encourage their children to do what we ask of them when they really have to comply
eg getting into car seat, brushing teeth etc

oreg - what to do about the book throwing? Hard to analyse from here. Usually there's some reason they're doing it - attention. So may be your mistake was go to upstairs and not take him? Or perhaps he's tired and you didn't get him to bed soon enough. Or may be he needs more time playing outside. I don't know what yo did that was wrong though - surely he'd being like a lot of 4 year olds and you did what most parents would do - bundle him into the car. What you didn't do was beat him or give him other punishment which neither would I have done.

Message withdrawn

The day at the friend's house turned out OK (for those of you waiting with baited breath), and we managed to get the books put away together.

I think a lot of my worries and concerns about all of this are more about me than him. (sigh.)

Like Otherside, I would also like to hear more practical tips and solutions.

I guess for me the problem with explaining is that I can do it till I am blue in the face and still see no real change in behaviour. But perhaps that is unrealistic in a 2.8 year old?

I think the whole point is that there aren't any quick fix failsafe tips or solutions

bringing up a child is a very complicated and long term thing

this book is about as far from supernanny as you can get - he isn't advising one rule for every child, heavy structured discipline, 'methods' or 'techniques'

he is trying to get you to look differently at your relationship with your child and at the way that we attempt to control our children's behaviour

if he can do that, you will gain a different perspective on the whole subject and your approach will be guided by that

you won't need someone who has never met your child to advise you to do set things to get them to behave - you will have different expectations in the first place.

Does that make sense?