Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason Book

I didn't want to like this book.

What is it about "gentle" parenting types that makes them so obnoxious? Why does the phrase "unconditional parenting" make me want to hurl? Why do "lactivists" make me want to offer their children Dr. Pepper in a baby bottle?

But really I love baby slings! And nursing! Why do I want to run screaming when I meet up with some ardent proponents of things I more or less agree with??

I think it's the strident "mommier-than-thou" tone of a lot of attachment/gentle/natural parenting literature out there. For some reason, a discussion of their views always seems to be preceded with a strident denouncement of what everyone else is doing so very wrong.

And this book is no exception. While I'm still finishing up (skimming mostly), I can see that the majority of this book seems to be pointing out flaws with other philosophies of parenting. Alfie Kohn knows what everyone else is doing to warp their kids. Other parenting experts, pediatricians, teachers, and a variety of other parents Alfie has observed are just doing it wrong wrong wrong.

His primary target is the punishment/reward continuum so much of contemporary parenting advice is based on. Alfie feels that this destroys trust, short-circuits reasoning and moral development, and forces children to rely on extrinsic motivations to treat others well, rather than intrinsic ones. He is especially harsh on using timeouts as a discipline technique - referring to them as "love withdrawals." Oh my goodness.

His argument is made too stridently for me, his method of citing scientific studies is shoddy, and I hate the way he picks on parents that have had the misfortune to encounter him on one of their worse days with their children.

That all being said, I think I agree with him. The punishment-reward "behavior modification" methods popularized by SuperNanny and such always seemed kind of icky to me. While I'm not sure I share his conclusions that they are tremendously damaging ("love withdrawals?!?"), I am pretty sure that they don't work. At least not in my house.

I appreciate being let off the hook for not following through on naughty mats, timeouts, sticker charts, or any of that stuff. It was a pain to do and just did not work for us.

While I wish Alfie spent a little more time on what -does- work, I agree with his assertion simple carrot-stick methods are not what is needed for the most effective parenting.