More Books to Support Unconditional Parenting

If you're intrigued by the suggestion that you can effectively discipline your kids without threats, time-outs, bribes, praise, rewards, or other common discipline practices, then I have two more great books to recommend for you!

If you've been reading my blog over the past couple of weeks, you'll know that I've been raving about Alfie Kohn's book, Unconditional Parenting, and sharing my efforts to implement what I've learned.

I'm so excited to have found two other books that complement his work very well, and offer additional concrete examples of how to have "unconditional conversations", if you will, with your kids.

First, the oldie: Between Parent and Child, by Dr. Haim Ginott, was originally written in 1965. Yes, you read it correctly … 1965! It was revised and updated in 2003. This book is chock full of great sample conversations that model how to:

• Discipline without threats, bribes, sarcasm, and punishment
• Criticize without demeaning, praise without judging, and express anger without hurting
• Acknowledge rather than argue with children's feelings, perceptions, and opinions
• Respond so that children will learn to trust and develop self-confidence

(That bulleted list was taken from the back cover of the book.) This book has helped me implement many of the ideas in Kohn's book. What a treasure! I found plenty of copies of this book at my local library, so my mom and husband could read along with me. J

And now for the shorty: Raising Children Compassionately, by Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg, is an itty-bitty 22-pager you can read in one sitting! In describing an alternative to coercion and punishment, he states, "It requires an awareness of the subtle but important difference between our objective being to get people to do what we want, […] and instead being clear that our objective is to create the quality of connection necessary for everyone's needs to get met."

I'll admit, his writing isn't the smoothest in the world, but his message is brilliant! Plus, Dr. Rosenberg has been successfully using his techniques for over 40 years to mediate conflict everywhere from the Middle East to inner city gangs. You can learn more about his work and order this book through www.nonviolentcommunication.com.

Happy reading and happy parenting, everyone!