Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason 1st Edition by Alfie Kohn (PDF)

Description

A groundbreaking approach to parenting by nationally-respected educator Alfie Kohn that gives parents “powerful alternatives to help children become their most caring, responsible selves” (Adele Faber, New York Times bestselling author) by switching the dynamic from doing things to children to working with them in order to understand their needs and how to meet them.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.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐How often have you heard parents justify their parental dictates on the basis of “because this family is not a democracy”? On the surface, that probably sounds rather common sensical. Who would think that little people who have never had to punch a time clock or make a mortgage payment would know anything about running a family? Instead, conventional wisdom (along with most “experts”) tell us that children need a firm, strong hand, clear boundaries and limits and predictable consequences for violating said limits.Finally, at long last comes Alfie Kohn to turn such conventional assumptions on their head. Why, Kohn asks, should children be expected to be unquestioningly obedient to adults? Why should adult needs and desires necessarily trump those of children? In fact, if you ask most parents what they want for their children in the long run, you will probably hear words like “independent”, “self-assertive”, “creative” and “confident”. Why then do we so often fall back on day-to-day parenting strategies that insist on obedience and parental control?Kohn is no Pollyanna. He recognizes that parenting is hard work and that there are real life demands that must be met. He is not naïve enough to think that children are always sweet and wonderful or that there’s a magic pill that will make children automatically helpful and cooperative. But he does argue that the stresses of parenting and family life, along with outside pressure, lead us to use control-based disciplinary techniques which seem like “common sense” and which may even be guaranteed to “work” by parenting “guidebooks” written by “experts”. Such tactics, however, according to Kohn, are not only counterproductive in the long run for actually increasing children’s responsiveness, but are actually harmful to children because of how they make (or at least seem to the child to make) parental love conditional on behavior, when what children really need is unconditional love.Kohn deconstructs what punishment really means: making someone suffer – inflicting physical or emotional pain – for something “bad” they have done. He argues that it is hard to reconcile unconditional love with being willing to make a loved one suffer pain. Furthermore, Kohn does not limit punishment to things like spanking, yelling or taking away possessions. Kohn argues that “time-outs” – typically thought to be a gentler response to misbehavior – count as punishment too because of the use of “love withdrawal”. In fact, time-outs may be one of the worst forms of punishment because they explicitly tie parental love and attention to behavior, which sends the message to the child that s/he is only lovable when s/he is being “good”. Given how dependent children are on their parents, this is almost tantamount to the threat of abandoning the child if s/he doesn’t behave.Moreover, Kohn goes further to show that focusing on rewarding children for positive behavior is little if any better than punishing bad behavior. Rewards and punishments, in fact, are simply flip sides of the same coin. Both focus on overt behavior rather than underlying causes of behavior. Both make parental love and approval conditional upon “good” behavior. And both are a form of control – methods of “doing to” children to coerce obedience.Kohn argues instead that we should strive for “working with” methods of interaction which give kids a voice and sense of control over their own lives. Kohn argues that humans, including children, have a fundamental need to have a sense of control. Feeling overcontrolled can make kids either rebel and counteract the intention and efficacy of the controlling tactics, or else they will basically wilt and give in, thereby losing sense of their own autonomy and initiative. In either case, children experiencing too much control are likely to have less self-esteem (or, at least, self-esteem that is more conditional upon others’ approval), be less willing to take risks and explore, and be more susceptible to outside influences and pressure.Contrary to popular misconceptions, however, Kohn is not arguing for a free-for-all. Giving up control does not mean a hands-off approach or letting children do and get away with whatever they want. In fact, unconditional parenting involves more parental engagement, not less. Parents need to be consistently working with their children; teaching, explaining and modeling appropriate behavior; explaining and helping children to understand the effects of their behavior on other people; working (and struggling) with – not against – their children to solve problems and conflicts and come up with mutually workable solutions; and struggling with their own vulnerabilities in order to allow for a more genuine presentation and authentic, trust-based relationships with children.Making this extra effort pays off first of all in terms of greater responsiveness from children. In a seeming paradox, children who are less controlled respond better to parental directives when they are given and are more willing to cooperate with their parents. But more importantly, such efforts pay off in terms of raising happy, healthy, secure and confident young people who are better able to manage life in the “real world” than children whose parents have used controlling methods to get them “ready for” the real world. Moreover, secure and confident children are more likely to grow up to be the kinds of people who see the faults with the “real world” and who are willing to work to make them better rather than just accepting that that’s the way things are.I have always had a sense of how I wanted to raise my daughters (currently ages 4 and 6), and neither punishments nor rewards have ever felt right to me (although I will confess to having used both at times, to my lasting regret). This book has helped me crystallize and articulate my misgivings as well as point me to a better path which I always sensed was there and which I’ve foundered around trying to find on my own. I am fortunate to have relatively “good” and “easy” children, but I’ve found that I can make things even easier (or at least less conflictual) by letting go and learning to trust my daughters’ good impulses and the loving upbringing I’ve given them so far. When it comes to picking battles, the only one I think is worth fighting is the battle to maintain a healthy, open relationship with them, and the less I punish or reward and the more I just listen and support, the less of a battle it is.

⭐This book is absolutely amazing and has a place in the hall of fame for children’s rights. Kohn is one of the top children’s rights activists in the world, but he is only one man and his work here has some faults.Overall, Kohn provides a balance of data and story-telling from that data, creating a picture of the situation at hand. His view is flexible and nuanced, taking on multiple perspectives to empathize with parents, teachers, and especially- the child. It’s non-threatening, as much as a controversial topic can be, and compassionate towards the parents and teachers that need this advice the most. We are asking our adults to treat our children better and totally differently, and this book achieves the “soft touch” that a more blunt activist like myself has a hard time doing.While his creativity in analyzing the problem or situation is abundant, Kohn misses the mark with providing solutions. There are a few options here and there, but sometimes he will call on us to accept a difficult situation without any solution provided thereafter.The hardest example is when he makes the observation that our world is designed against the needs and personalities of children. He rightly observes that our kids are expected to act like small adults in public places. Don’t be too loud, better yet, be totally silent and follow us around, and just stand or sit there peacefully while we do adult work. This is boring for kids and the environment is set up for conflict and failure. Kohn also observes that when parents are self-conscious or paranoid about being judged in public, they are more likely to commit the actions (abuse, control) that bring judgment- a self-fulfilling prophecy.Here’s the picture painted: we have a world designed against kids, designed for stress and conflict in families in public, and self-conscious parents responding to this world by abusing their children. And what is Kohn’s advice? An abrupt conclusion that we should just accept it as is. He skipped all the possible questioning, data, success stories, options and solutions that he normally presents elsewhere.A great example of a solution I would provide is Mike Lanza’s book Playborhood. He and his family met with their neighbors to structure their neighborhood as a safe, interconnected and fun environment for their kids. The idea goes, if we can make our neighborhood a wonderful place, then our kids can have maximum freedom to do as they please. One of the greatest parental fears of the modern world is the safety of their kids outside, and this has restricted childhood autonomy to a severe level- permanently harming their development of independence (see: Dr. Peter Gray, Free to Learn). Mike Lanza’s solution calls for anybody to create a Playborhood, and this means having the courage to reach out socially and start something unprecedented, and of course, looking for the right neighborhood to start a family.There are so many things we can do, so many actions we can take, to improve children’s rights and allow them to truly be themselves. Kohn’s book is wonderful in bringing to light the problem and provides some solutions for how parents interact with kids and teachers. But it misses the mark with providing calls to action in public, community, and unschooling.

⭐This is such an eye opener.All of its conclusions are based on hard evidence.Sadly I only came across this very recently and not 7 years ago. Had I come across this earlier, it would have channelled my energy used for punishing, for more useful interactions with my children such as helping them understand the emotions inside them and help them express their feelings differently and in better, non-aggressive ways which won’t hurt others. Instead of spending time on supervising my children completing their ‘time out’ time or thinking up ‘consequences’ to punish them, I should have invested in more emotionally productive means such as conversations to help make children empathetic to the feelings of others, to create moral awareness, to help them to feel responsible for their actions and most of all, to help deal with anger and aggression. Instead, i have involuntarily fuelled aggression, frustration and hatred. And definitely not stimulated self-reflection. ‘Punishment breads misbehaviour’ and ‘Rewards are counterproductive’.This book entirely questions the way we have been raised and the strategies we apply – punishment and rewards – in order to excise control over our children and use power and pressure to make children obey and comply in the short run. This book explains why these strategies are not only questionable but why they don’t work and why they’re even counterproductive. Based on trials and research this book demonstrates in excellent ways its core theory and concludes important arguments against ‘conditional parenting’. We do not want children who are obedient out of pressure and out of fear of loosing love, and without a sense of self. We all want moral, independent individuals who have the ability to be proud of them from the inside and who don’t depend on external praise. We want people who don’t comply blindly. This book is NOT an invitation to anti-authoritarian parenting but an invitation to be permissive of the feelings of children, not of the actions. It’s very much the school of thought as Haim Ginott’s ‘Parent and Child’. Treat kids with love and attention. You can not spoil them. The more you show understanding for children, the more desirable the outcome.This book looks at the core of issues of kids: to identify their feelings and to help them express these in better ways, ways that are not hurtful to others, neither emotionally nor physically. The book looks at the heart of the problem of misbehaviour: feelings that come out wrongly and unpredictibally. Feelings that have been suppressed and not dealt with before. This book is in every sense the opposite of how I was brought up or from what I’ve read and seen such as ‘Supernanny’ and other common parenting informations that have lead me into a wrong direction. It is going to be a hard journey to change my own conditioned behaviour so drastically.Everything in this book confirms the secret fears of every parent, of raising children wrongly. And this is hard to admit to oneself. For a many parents this book is likely to be too radical. I’m hopeful it’s not too late for my children.

⭐I love this method of parenting and try to follow the principles with my crew of littles.. however, halfway through this book I thought.. I’ve not learned much here but I’ve heard a lot of bitching about things the author has seen and how ‘not to parent’, lots of ‘oo haven’t you seen this a million times it’s just awful’-type anecdotes. Jeez, we all have bad days! Just made me think this is a bit of a ‘holier-than-thou’ book and a facilitator for mum-shaming and judgement. Maybe I’m being over-sensitive but I just didn’t enjoy the feel of the book.

⭐I think this book speaks to the wisdom of the heart. That we know how to love and care for our children. So glad I read it and felt the principles are right, simply put its parenting from the heart. Which is under preached. I read this in tandem with current healthcare advice… which still cites many practices which are tit for tat. Life is full of alot of tough stuff, home should be a sanctuary and a haven for family life. Any time I feel myself reacting, I just ask, is what my child is doing safe? Is what I am asking necessary? Is there a better way? And I have the humility to apologise, and to acknowledge I can’t fully understand the world from my child’s perspective. I feel vindicated that common practices are manipulative, doing take into account emotions and thoughts. Behavior is now a word that makes me cringe. As if they are “acting” instead of “being”. Permission to be ourselves, let others do the same, seek to understand and be patient. Learned alot from the book, the author has supported his arguments from epidemiological studies… however I think in your heart, you’ll know, what the right way to show love is. With kindness, understanding and patience.

⭐So as a mother of 2 small boys I am always open to reading books about parenting. So this turned everything I thought I knew about good parenting on it’s head. It is eye opening and makes you question all your parenting practices. It was such an interesting read. Ok so the author is an “educator” which initially made me think if it was worth reading but I had seen it recommended somewhere else and thought I would give a try. I would recommend this to any parent – I am at the point where all the other books I have bought over the past 7 years will be heading out the door. This is the only book I will refer to in future. Makes you question some of the things you say to your children – and how the naughty step simply replaced physical chastisement (eek!!). One final word of warning though – after reading this you will wince when you hear what some people say to their children.

⭐We know a lot more about child development and cognition, the setting of patterns of behaviour at an early age, and more, than we ever have.It’s sad that too many parents pay more attention to social media, shopping, and acquisition of stuff than the all important task of tearing healthy balanced children.Other reviewers have said how it has changed their lives, and that if their children, for the better.We are embarking on that journey, but I’ve seen the results with a personal friend. His wife refused to change her authoritarian ways, my friend did everything to encourage otherwise.Post divorce, his daughter rejected the mother in favour of the dad. She is, without doubt, one of the most confident, rounded, and interesting children I know, and her school reports shine as a testament to her character.Read this book with an open mind. It’s challenging, but raising children was never easy. This approach pays dividends.

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