I feel like I've read just about every book under the sun about pregnancy and childbirth (well, at least all the crunchy ones). Ina May, Michel Odent, Suzanne Arms, Jennifer Block, Sheila Kitzinger, and all their pals have been lining my bookshelf since I was about fifteen. I feel like I have a pretty solid foundational knowledge of birth.
Parenting is a different story. I'm treading unknown waters, here. I see fins.
It's time to bone up.
I have bought a few books on parenting, narrowing it down to guides that branch from attachment parenting, with a focus on gentle and non-punitive parenting.
My first read was Parenting with Purpose by Lynda Madison. I started out with really high hopes, underlining and dog-earing, soaking it up and nodding in agreement. As the book went on and started talking about actual discipline techniques, I started to get real disappointed real fast.
The first section of the book discusses how to set yourself up for successful parenting, and it is gold. She outlines her four facets of successful parenting, which I'll summarize briefly, expanding more on the last one, which is where she really lost me.
Commitment
You can't parent from the couch and expect to be effective. You have to be the adult and expect to delay having your own needs met in order to meet those of your children. You have to set your child up in an environment where they have as much freedom as possible - "If it isn't for play, put it away."
Respect
You've got to give it to get it. Respect your child's age and development, respect their temperament, and assume the best of the motivation behind their behavior. Know that they are not small adults. Know that you're teaching them how to treat people by the way you treat them - be worthy of imitation. If you don't want them to hit, yell, say nasty things to you, don't do those things to them (or anyone...or the dog).
Trustworthiness
They need to know what to expect from you. Be predictable and reliable, both with your discipline and your promises.
Good Technique
The "How-to" part. The techniques hinge on the presence of the previous three "ingredients." Discipline is teaching, not punishment.
Like I said, everything was copacetic between Lynda Madison and me until we got to that last part. I disagree that the techniques she presents have much to do with the foundation she laid earlier in the book.
The discipline techniques that she outlines are based in behaviorism. It all boils down to punishing or ignoring (and to a child, ignoring is punishing) bad behavior and rewarding good behavior. The focus is all on the behavior, and not the child. It's a "what have you done for me lately" approach to parenting that the more I learn, the more I realize I fundamentally disagree with.
She gives some good advice, like setting up a calm, positive environment so that discipline is less necessary. She gives great guidelines on what kind of language or action is appropriate for different aged children. She notes that discipline should be given progressively, from least intrusive (ignoring) to most (time-out), and that the child should always be given the opportunity to "make it right," and feel absolved for the misbehavior.
However - there are huge, big things that I disagree with.
One is that she says time-out does not qualify as punishment. I understand that she means this in a clinical sense (although she doesn't say this explicitly, so I'm not sure everyone who reads this will understand that), but to the child - a time out is absolutely punishment. Discipline does not have to be corporal to be punitive. It's fine if you want to use time-out as a punishment, but claiming that it isn't a punishment is just not true. Even something as seemingly benign as withholding your attention can be a punishment, from the perspective of the child.
While she does recommend that time-outs be very short (under a minute), she also recommends physically restraining them in the chair if they won't sit still in it (if they're 3+). She says to hold them down just until they relax, just for a split second, then to let them up. This, I just flat don't understand. This is 100% power struggle and nothing else. This is "I'm bigger than you, and I'm going to make you bend to my will." If your three year old is in that state of mind where they are running from you and having a tantrum, they're gone. You've lost them. They're not going to remember why you're holding them down, even if you remind them; they're now just mad at being restrained. I don't think that a child young enough to be held down is old enough to really comprehend why you're doing it.
[A note: I think there are times when it may be appropriate to physically restrain a child, like when they are revved up to the point of not being in control of their body. But a bear hug in an effort to instill some calm in them is not the same as squatting behind a chair and holding them in it.]
It seems logical to say that you're just being consistent and following through with what you said you were going to do - I said time out, so there will be a time out. I think that's a very limited view. I don't think that it does anything to help the child make the connection that what they did was "bad," because you've overwhelmed them. They're going to be so focused on being so pissed about being held down, that there's no longer any benefit to completing your punishment sentence.
Evidently, my biggest beef was this "restrain them in time-out if they won't comply" bit. It soured everything I'd read up until that point, which is a shame, because there was some great stuff.
All in all, I think the title of the book is misleading. "Parenting with purpose" should be a wide-view, end-game style of parenting. When you're parenting deliberately, it should imply that you are focusing on the effect of your actions, questioning your motive, and keeping the long-term goal in sight rather than aiming for short-term successes (that is, focusing on helping the child become a happy, responsible, moral, healthy adult rather than pinpointing and correcting "problem behaviors"). Behaviorism, duh, is concerned primarily with the behavior of the child. That's not where we're headed.
Next on my reading list are Unconditional Parenting (Alfie Kohn), The Magical Child (Joseph Chilton Pearce), and The Emotional Life of the Toddler (Alicia Lieberman). Here's hoping those will be more helpful for us.
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