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

Quick read. Very helpful.

This book is an absolute must-read on parenting. I was fortunate enough to come across this book when my oldest was a baby. I didn't know how it would work, but I was committed to the book's principles which really resonated with me. My son is now 4.5 years old, and I can tell you that this is a wonderful, loving, close, gentle, respectful way to parent, that pays more and more dividends as time progresses. I've watched my son blossom from a very intense and high-need baby/toddler to a very intense, active, loving, generous, kind boy. Did Unconditional Parenting change his basic independent, challenging, engaging personality? Of course not. Nor would I want it to. It took millions of years of evolution to give us all the wonderfully diverse personality types we see today. But he wasn't an "easy" baby, and he's not an "easy" child. But I see him mirroring his treatment of me and others by my treatment of him. He has a high respect for himself and others. He's happy,healthy, and thriving with the help of unconditional parenting (and attachment parenting).Update: (7-9-2011) Well, I've definitely had some parenting ups and downs since my last review. Have had some challenging periods. Got sucked into some more traditional discipline techniques, and had that spiral downward. I desperately began searching for specific advice, and found "Parent Effectiveness Training." That changed everything. P.E.T. gave specific advice about how to implement respectful, non-behavioral-modification discipline, and by discipline I really mean problem-solving. It's the nuts and bolts of how to effectively problem solve with not only children, but everyone in your life, for those of us whose parents were unaware of how to teach us these skills, as they were not taught to them by their parents either. Now, P.E.T. and UP has given today's parents the opportunity to stop the cycle of ineffective, disrespectful parenting.Unconditional Parenting gave me the knowledge and the "proof" to keep looking for respectful parenting strategies, but if you have strong-willed kids, like me, you need more. Read P.E.T. and then "How to Talk...." after that. Definitely Read UP to give you the fortitude to trust in avoiding punishments and rewards. I can tell you from personal experience, punishments and rewards start backfiring in a vicious way with strong-willed kids! And from my own childhood, I can tell you that they can interfere with a more pliable kid's sense of self.If you want to have a respectful, satisfying relationship with your children, if you want to raise them to take responsibility for their own behavior, without a carrot or a stick in the wings, then read the aforementioned books!

I was skeptical before reading this book. No time outs? No punishments, no rewards? There's a problem with praise? I was even skeptical for the first few chapters. But by the end, I was won over by the sheer amount of research backing up Kohl's parenting philosophy.I told my husband when I finished it that I was going to try it. We were done with time outs, punishments and praise. My husband raised his eyebrows but went along. While I can't say that we've done this perfectly, the change this wrought in the behavior of our oldest (4 yrs old) was amazing. So much so that my husband said about two weeks later that whatever it was that I was doing differently, I should keep doing it. Her preschool teacher remarked that my daughter just seemed to "really change, really grow" all of a sudden. Truly, it was remarkable.It should be noted that this is not a "how-to" book. There are not a lot of practical examples of how to parent as Kohl suggests. For this, I would suggest reading "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk" by Faber and Mazlish (as well as their other books).Even if you end up not agreeing with this book, I would suggest reading it since it will challenge you to think critically about what kind of children you want to raise and how they way you parent affects them.ETA: It's now been two years since I first read this book and I would still consider this the most important, even if not most helpful, parenting book I have read. It not only transformed my parenting but it gave me tools for sorting through the mounds of often contradictory advice out there. Reading this put me on a quest to build a better, more effective parenting toolbox, and I am so grateful for having learned better ways of responding to conflicts with my children (and for seriously reducing said conflicts as well!). For books helpful in this manner, I would also recommend reading Larry Cohen's "Playful Parenting" and Mary Sheedy Kurchinka's "Kids, Parents and Power Struggles."

es un libro muy interesante para las personas que tratan con peques, da una perspectiva diferente de la educación y merece mucho la pena. La lectura es sencilla y ágil. Lo recomiendo mucho

Can’t recommend this book more to all parents

Very use full book . Being a mom for the first time this book gives a basic idea of how to bring up kids. It questions the conventional way of bribing and over praising kids. Emphasis on unconditional love . Can I apply all the ideas in the book in real life, no . But still makes u stop and question the ways in which we interact with them.

great points for thinking over our parental aims ans actions. the style is very clear and most important, quite not the recipe book - mind changing, even if your parenting approach is already on the motivational side rather than coercive

Ich bin auf Alfie Kohn über ein Blog aufmerksam geworden und habe mit meinem Mann einen Vortrag von ihm online angesehen. Immer wieder mussten wir pausieren und uns austauschen über Kindheitserinnerungen, die genau widerspiegeln, wovon Kohn sprach. Zutiefst beeindruckt von der Logik seiner Ausführungen versuchen wir, möglichst viel umzusetzen.So viele andere Erziehungs- und Kinderratgeber basieren hauptsächlich auf Annahmen und Sichtweisen des Autors oder aber auf dem so genannten Behaviorismus nach B.F. Skinner. Dieser Mann hat Versuche mit Ratten und Tauben durchgeführt; daraus angeleitet werden aber Maßnahmen für Kinder. So absurd es klingt, bildet dieser Ansatz heute die Grundlage der meisten Erziehungsmaßńahmen: Wie beeinflusse ich das Verhalten des Kindes so, wie ich das haben will? Keine Frage nach den Gründen, warum sich das Kind "falsch" verhält. Keine kritische Beurteilung, ob die Forderung des Erwachsenen überhaupt gerechtfertigt ist. Temporäre Folgsamkeit ist das Ziel. Aber zu welchem Preis?Die Ausführungen in diesem Buch hingegen basieren auf Sichtung einer Vielzahl von wissenschaftlichen Studien und Befragungen von Menschen und sind fachlich nachvollziehbar referenziert.Es ist schwer, aus den von den eigenen Eltern erlernten Mustern auszubrechen; auch sie haben es in ihrer Art nur gut gemeint. Aber ich möchte, dass meine Kinder immer wissen, dass ich sie liebe, ohne dass sie dafür Leistungen erbringen und sich verbiegen müssen. Ich möchte, dass meine Kinder mit ihren Problemen vertrauensvoll zu mir kommen, statt aus Angst vor Konsequenzen zu schweigen oder zu lügen. Ich möchte eine Rolle im ganzen Leben meiner Kinder spielen, nicht nur Kontrolle über sie haben, solange sie klein sind. Ich möchte, dass meine Kinder über die Wirkungen ihrer Handlungen auf andere Menschen/Lebewesen nachdenken, statt sich nur zu überlegen, welche Strafe/Belohnung sie selbst erwartet. Ich möchte, dass meine Kinder eigene Entscheidungen treffen, statt von klein auf zu lernen, möglichst widerspruchslos Anweisungen zu befolgen.Wer sich die Lektüre auf Englisch nicht zutraut, nehme sich die deutsche Fassung ("Liebe und Eigenständigkeit: die Kunst bedingungsloser Elternschaft, jenseits von Belohnung und Bestrafung"). Aber lesen sollte man dieses Buch!P.S. Sucht man über goo*le "leseprobe liebe und eigenständigkeit" kann man leicht einen Link zu den ersten 40 Seiten auf Deutsch finden. Ein sehr guter Einblick.