Unconditional Love

So I am in a new play group. Well Mother's Group, Well No, a Book group of Moms who have Babies. Maybe you can tell I haven't made my mind up about the group yet. The other babies who were there were 6-8 months old, not very mobile, Thus the house was completely unchildproofed and there weren't really many toys either.

So Holly was a little bored and hard to contain. Within minutes she knocked over someone's glass of water and almost broke the glass, but I mean seriously a new mom should know better then to leave glasses of water on the floor. Well Holly got all her cloths wet, so I had to change her.

One of the moms had a 1 year old but didn't bring her. Another it seems had a 33 yr old and as there mostly just for the book club part. Also the moms were practicing Elimination Communication, "Part-Time" I bit my tongue, its not that I didn't think it was cool that they were doing it, but from the other moms I have talked too it is something that takes 120% commitment.

I am also not convinced that having a discussion topic for a play group is a good idea, for me anyway. Rather then my relaxed and playful self I seem to get a bit competitive it seems when I am discussing something like a book. Joel sys he remembers me from how I was in class in college, I can be aggressive and opinionated, so I also fear I may not have made the best impression of myself either.



Then there is the book we read. It was sorta life changing, a complete paradigm shift, but overwhelming and frustrating and really hard to wrap your brain around.

So its called, "Unconditional Parenting - Moving from Rewards and Punishment to Love and Reason"

From the website: http://www.alfiekohn.org/up/index.html

Most parenting guides begin with the question "How can we get kids to do what
they're told?" -- and then proceed to offer various techniques for controlling
them. In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator Alfie
Kohn begins instead by asking "What do kids need - and how can we meet those
needs?" What follows from that question are ideas for working with children
rather than doing things to them. One basic need all children have, Kohn argues,
is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they
screw up or fall short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as
punishments (including "time-outs"), rewards (including positive reinforcement),
and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they
please us or impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful, and largely unknown,
research detailing the damage caused by leading children to believe they must
earn our approval. That's precisely the message children derive from common
discipline techniques, even though it's not the message most parents intend to
send. More than just another book about discipline, though, Unconditional
Parenting addresses the ways parents think about, feel about, and act with their
children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about raising
kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from "doing
to" to "working with" parenting - including how to replace praise with the
unconditional support that children need to grow into healthy, caring,
responsible people. This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will
reconnect readers to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better
parents.

So here is the deal in theory I really get what the book is saying. He presents this amazing argument over several chapters so you can logically see how the carrot and the stick is damaging and how almost all conventional parenting falls into one of those two categories.

The thing is, he writes for about 9 chapters about how everything we all do is not ideal and then in the last 3 chapters when you are desperate for the alternatives he leaves you wanting, saying that every situation is different and there is no how to and using these tools you can figure out what to do. Well maybe I am just not smart enough to figure it out, but it really left me empty and frustrated, knowing I didn't want to follow the traditional path that he convinced me was bad but not sure how to do it another way.


The main point I guess is to have a conversation with your kids on and about every situation Don't say good job, Say you just put the block in the box. Don't say don't throw the toy, first ask yourself why you want your child not to throw the toy. Will it hurt someone? If not then maybe your request is just controlling. But if there is a reason, explain the reason, or ask the child why they are throwing the toy, ect. Work with your child do not control them, don't focus on the behavior but instead the underlying cause. Maybe your child wants more attntion, or is upset for some reason. So in theory this can work, it is a lot of extra work, but worth it.

My problem is that I simply don't know how to do this in practice with every situation. So anyways, Joel is going t read the book, and maybe he can make some more practical sence of it. I will post ore later.