Let’s face it. Kids can sometimes aggravate the best of us. I mean, raising kids does not have to be rocket science, but trust me sometimes it is way more complicated. From temper tantrums to school squabbles, children seem to effortlessly walk into trouble. Top it with tons of conflicting advice thrown in, and you have a thorny situation with little wiggle room. But I wasn’t one to be defeated easily. I had been dabbling with parenting books, each with a poignant tale to tell, each with its own version of ‘the right way to raise kids’, most of them written by those who have ‘been there done that’. A truckload of advice, that it is easy to lose focus.
And then I found this little gem among the crowd, a book that literally speaks to me. Unconditional Parenting, by Alfie Kohn, is one of those parenting theories that puts the spotlight on the kids. Most books I read earlier seemed to want to correct and discipline, educate and train. And not one of them made me want to adopt their principles. (Case in point – the Tiger Mom – more on that one in a later post.) My home isn’t a military school, and I like to keep it that way!
Unconditional parenting delves into the real deal. Talks about how to really put yourself in your child’s shoes and teaches ways to communicate rather than ‘condition’. I mean, to me parenting is about giving Shash his own identity, not creating what I perceive to be an ideal child. The book puts the focus on the child, not on their behaviour. Kohn, father of two, offers well thought-out ways to make a child choose to act a certain way, and actually admits that rewarding good behaviour defeats the purpose. He goes on to emphasize that the point of seeking out desirable behaviour is to make a child want to act a certain way, to instill those values naturally.
I particularly loved one little story, where the author talks about a woman in the audience at one of his speeches. She tells him about her child who had scored a proficiency prize and received the student of the month award. The school then gifts her a bumper sticker with the words ‘I am proud of my child, who was student of the month’. The mom resists being a conditional parent by snipping off the second phrase, so the sticker on her car reads ‘I am proud of my child’! How cool is that!
The little I have implemented from this approach has taught me that Shashank is more likely to respond to healthy communication, to empathy and love, and that he will just as easily reject coercion or negotiation. Traditional parenting places undue focus on withdrawing attention, loss of privileges and the lure of reward. On the contrary, teaching a child that we love them regardless of how they behave can very well be the key to the mysteries of a human child!
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