Think Hard About Your Parenting Priorities

Do you want your child to obey you without hesitation, or do you want to raise a self-reliant, critical-thinking, responsible, and caring adult? What if the two were mutually exclusive?

I take back everything I've written or said about discipline, including my time-out chart.

Over the weekend, I have had a complete change of heart around parenting. This epiphany came in the form of a book I believe to be the most important book I'll ever read about parenting. It is challenging all of my current beliefs about how to raise and discipline Lucas, while at the same time, offering an alternative that resonates deeply with me as much more effective in meeting my long-term goals of raising a compassionate, confident, responsible, and deep-thinking adult.

The book is called Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason, written by Alfie Kohn. From the back cover: "This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will reconnect readers to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better parents." Also, "Kohn sites 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."

I won't recap the entire book here. However, I have been so moved by what I've read, I've decided to share - in installments - how I am implementing what I'm learning, and what changes I'm seeing at home.

*Update*: Here are links to the above-mentioned installments and other posts related to unconditional parenting:
Questioning Your Parenting Philosophy
Are You Making Unreasonable Requests? 
My Progress With Unconditional Parenting 
Schooled by my Mom 
More Books to Support Unconditional Parenting 
I Caught Myself 
Discipline Myths, Hitting, and Non-Coercive Parenting