unconditional parenting

...i realize that my virtual self has been a bit reticent lately, whether it's on this blog, or on flickr or on my friends' blogs. it's really not because i don't have anything to say. on the contrary, it's almost as if my heart is too full for me to even KNOW what i want to say. well, let me try and get some of this out before it's gone...

when my morning sickness began the night of valentines day 2004 at the detholz! show, i had no idea that my life could be turned upside down by such a tiny little creature. parenting has definitely changed me, and it continues to change me. the past few weeks have been especially mindbending for me, as i have begun a new journey in parenting, a total paradigm shift in the way i view parenting and children in general.

...i guess it all began with reading Between Parent and Child by Haim Ginott. here was a book that sought to understand children with compassion and without judgement and to communicate true empathy. i see so many parents these days who just want their kids to behave and do as they are told, especially when they are in public where other people may see and judge their parenting skills. parents can be so mean to their kids, so disrespectful, so belittling. this is something i am guilty of too. how many times have i cringed and blushed when cadence would scream bloody murder at church or at a store or among extended family? instead of thinking of her unmet needs that were causing her to act out, i just wanted her to be quiet and stop embarrassing me. how many times have i dismissed her cries and demands at home, attributing them to the inevitability of being 2 years old? how many times have i flat out ignored her from sheer exhaustion or pure laziness? too many times...

the real kicker this past month was when my friend michele gave me the DVD of Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting lecture, based on his book of the same title. ted and i watched it together, and it pretty much turned our thoughts on parenting upside down. i have since read the book as well, and it simultaneously pierced my heart and gave me hope for the future of our family. instead of summarizing it myself, i'm going to quote from alfie kohn's website:

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.

the really painful thing about reading this book was realizing how badly i was parented myself. sure, my parents tried to make amends when i was older, but the damage was already done. a lot of the really messed up shit had to do with growing up in a cult. i still remember having to line up w/ the other cult kids in the cult leader's office to show him our report card every quarter. i remember watching my brother give my parents grief and thinking that i could never let them know when i was breaking the rules because a) i didn't want to disappoint my parents and b) i didn't want to get punished. let's just say that my mom thought i was at the library every day after school throughout high school...

needless to say, i don't want cadence to have to pretend to be studying at the library everyday because she's afraid of telling me what she's really up to. i don't want her to make ethical or moral decisions based on whether or not she'll get caught or punished or rewarded or praised. and even if that may seem like in the distant future, i have to remember that even now, at just almost 2.5 years old, cadence is her own self. she knows what she likes and doesn't like. she has needs that are as totally valid and significant as the needs of myself or any other adult.

although children sometimes scream loud enough to cause hearing damage, and although they sometimes seem unbelievably strong when they are hitting us or throwing things or wrestling away from us, we have to remember that children are in fact smaller and weaker and have very little voice in our society. when a child cries or throws a tantrum and the parent ignores them because 'they're just trying to get attention,' and the parent doesn't want to spoil them by responding to them when they're acting like this, the parent forgets that the child's need for attention IS A VALID NEED.

anyhoo, it's kinda overwhelming when i envision the type of parent i want to be and the type that i've been, but i have hope that i won't repeat the cyle of dysfunction or negative parenting that has been a part of my personal history. ted and i don't want to just wing it as parents. it's hard work to treat such a demanding, persistent personality like cadence with respect and gentleness, and of course we're going to come up short time and time again. and yet kids can be so forgiving when they see that we really ARE trying and when we admit to them our own weaknesses.

for any parents out there or anyone thinking of becoming parents or anyone wondering how maybe you were impacted by your parents' treatment of you and/or your siblings or anyone involved in anything w/ children (childcare, teaching, sunday school etc), i highly recommend Unconditional Parenting, either the book or the DVD.

here are also some other books and websites that have been really helpful to me in my quest to become a compassionate and respectful parent/spouse/person:

between parent and child by haim ginott
how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk by adele faber and elaine mazlish
becoming the parent you want to be by laura davis and janis keyser
adventures in gentle discipline by hilary flower
the natural child: parenting from the heart by jan hunt
smart love by martha heinemann pieper and william j. pieper
mothering magazine
mama toto (baby wearing)
magical childhood
empathic discipline (the site of parenting coach lisa stroyan)