Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
Alfie Kohn
Top 10 Best Quotes
“The way kids learn to make good decisions is by making decisions, not by following directions.”
“In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.”
“Even before i had children, I knew that being a parent was going to be challenging as well as rewarding. But I didn't really know. I didn't know how exhausted it was possible to become, or how clueless it was possible to feel, or how, each time I reached the end of my rope, I would somehow have to find more rope. I didn't understand that sometimes when your kids scream so loudly that the neighbors are ready to call the Department of Child Services, it's because you've served the wrong shape of pasta for dinner. I didn't realize that those deep-breathing exercises mothers are taught in natural-childbirth class dont really start to pay off until long after the child is out. I couldn't have predicted how relieved I'd be to learn that other peoples children struggle with the same issues, and act in some of the same ways, mine do. (Even more liberating is the recognition that other parents, too, have dark moments when they catch themselves not liking their own child, or wondering whether it's all worth it, or entertaining various other unspeakable thoughts). The bottom line is that raising kids is not for whimps.”
“How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.”
“Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children’s happiness than for their success.”
“One explanation was offered by Alice Miller: “Many people continue to pass on the cruel deeds and attitudes to which they were subjected as children, so that they can continue to idealize their parents.”16 Her premise is that we have a powerful, unconscious need to believe that everything our parents did to us was really for our own good and was done out of love. It’s too threatening for many of us even to entertain the possibility that they weren’t entirely well-meaning—or competent. So, in order to erase any doubts, we do the same things to our own children that our parents did to us.”
“I realized that this is what many people in our society seem to want most from children: not that they are caring or creative or curious, but simply that they are well behaved.”
“Similarly, parents who want to teach the importance of honesty make it a practice never to lie to their children, even when it would be easier just to claim that there are no cookies left rather than to explain why they can’t have another one.”
“Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it’s what the learner learns.”
“The dominant problem with parenting in our society isn't permissiveness, but the fear of permissiveness. We're so worried about spoiling kids that we often end up over controlling them.”
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Book Keywords:
child-rearing, struggle, child, children, parenting
