Discipline Without Punishment or Reward

I’m currently reading Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting. And although I haven’t gotten too far beyond the first chapter it’s definitely an eye opener. He says in the introduction that it is subversive and it is definitely that. All concepts of time-outs, consequences and reward charts are thrown out the window in favour of providing choices, discussion and understanding. As the parent of an energetic toddler, I struggle to see how I could ‘reason’ with her on a regular basis because half of the time when she’s having a tantrum she can’t remember what the tantrum is actually about. Although, to be fair, I have noticed recently that she is a lot more receptive to a request than a demand anyway, so I guess I just answered my own question.

As I’m reading it, and it challenges the vast majority of conventional wisdom on child discipline, it occurs to me that the traditional ideas behind discipline are all about trying to get children to behave as adults. Getteing them to sleep through the night, getting them to be independent, getting them to ‘behave’ in public places and restaurants etc.

I won’t really know how much of Alfie’s book I’ll take on board until I finish it – but I can already tell that it’s going to be very interesting. I had never really though too deeply about the messages that different types of discipline give children, but can see how time-outs reinforce that love and attention are conditional on obedient behaviour. So far one of the most interesting things about the book is the idea that the behaviours that are encouraged in young children are not consistent with our long-term goals for our children and are not even considered to be desirable behaviours in adulthood.The idea being that children should be encouraged to develop their own value system, think for themselves and have a healthy dash of rebellion; rather than either blindly following parental instructions or completely interalising the parents’ value system.

Another fascinating little observation in the book is that the word ‘good’ when applied to children doesn’t mean ‘good’ in the normal sense. While ‘good’ would normally mean kind, compassionate or moral; as applied to children it means, quiet, still, doing nothing (alot of the time).

Tagged as: behaviour, discipline, parenting, time-out, unconditional