Hi there,
Although the post is about parenting, it is not content exclusive to parents. Most of us are the victims of conditional parenting, and it is good to reflect on its effect on our social interaction. It may sound to many of you as widely discussed parenting techniques. But what I want to convey is the radical idea of unconditional parenting.
. . .
“Baba.. you know teacher Marvis love me all the time”, said my four year old. I was unsure of the point he wanted to make. Marvis is an exceptional teacher who is so loving and nurturing for preschoolers.
“Of course, she loves you, dear”, I replied
“She loves me when I do good, and she loves me when I do bad also”, he made his point clear.
I was speechless for a moment. I got overwhelmed by many simultaneous thoughts. Why does the teacher say that?. Isn’t it promoting bad behaviours?. If she is indifferent to good and bad behaviours, how they will choose the good ones?.Then even scarier thought came to me. He might be thinking that I don’t love him when he does something bad; that my love is conditional upon his good behaviour.
. . .
I was dwelling on this thought for months and was recently re-ignited by the book, “Unconditional Parenting” by Alfie Kohn.
Different approaches for controlling children
What are your objectives when you respond to your children? What is the best thing that you are hoping for? For most parents, it is obedience and control. But if you ask the parent, what do you wish for your child's future, they will say "independent, creative, happy etc”. But are we thinking about these objectives when we try to control the child?
Controlling has different tools which vary with changing morals of the society. Vaguely, we can categorise them (with increasing acceptance)
Corporal punishment<Verbal punishment < love withdrawal< material positive reinforcement < verbal positive reinforcement.
Approach to parenting may pick any of these tools. But the basic objective remains the same, "to control your children". Have you thought about the after-effects of such a childhood?
Horrors of corporal punishments
It was 4th standard. Our classroom was at the edge of the building divided into two classes, class 4A and 4B, by a wooden separator. On a physical education period, our Hindi teacher came in.
“ Mam, where is the PE teacher, we want to play football, can we get a ball”.
The whole job of the PE teacher was to get us football occasionally. I remember when he joined the school, there were some physical exercise sessions in the assembly. We hoped he will allow us to play in the PE period, which is otherwise taken by the maths teacher. But most of the time he let us down. We did not know what he was supposed to teach or do. For us, he was the ball keeper. But at the end of the day, we learned his main purpose in school.
“He is not coming, and you are not going out. Exams are coming and study quietly”, the teacher responded.
I don’t know what is it about the subject, I always had bad Hindi teachers. I studied the language for 5 years but never managed to develop an interest. This particular teacher had many idiosyncrasies which we used to mock. One of my classmate Subair, who is considered a mischievous kid, started imitating her. He was one of the veterans of the 4th standard as he is repeating the year after failing the exam!
“What is going on there ?”. We all knew Subair was in trouble. But the teacher was never the scary one. All of us used to mock her and had a funny image in our heads. She hardly uses the cane, which is always there at the teacher’s desk.
“Nothing, it was a joke,” Subir said mockingly.
“Share the joke to the class then” Teacher was not letting this go.
Subir mimicked the teacher and other kids started giggling. She felt insulted and called him to the front. She took the cane and asked him to show his hand. The whole class became silent. She started beating him. It was too much for the ego of veteran Subair. We knew he was in pain. But showing the vulnerability of weakness in front of the Hindi teacher was too much for him.
“f**ing bi**h” he murmured with tears in his eyes. It was louder than he expected.
“what did you say? The teacher was furious”
“f**ing bi**h” Subair repeated, a lot louder this time.
She increased the force on her blows and his hand turned redder. But he continued the swearing, with a screaming cry. The student and teacher from 4A were watching through the gaps of wooden separation. She felt she is not scary enough to discipline the kid. She turned to the class leader, Prashanth.
“ Call PE teacher”.
Prashanth ran to the office. The PE teacher came with an even longer cane. The one who bends when it hits and hurts even more. The Hindi teacher explained it. The PE teacher was a gigantic man with an almost spherical face. His eyes turned red in anger. He held one hand of Subair and started beating him on his bottom, repeatedly. A loud cry was let out, and the whole class knew the real job of the PE teacher.
. .
Corporal punishments were the go-to method for parents and teachers. It has been shown in many studies that such punishments are not effective for controlling the children, let alone helping their long term character. For compliance, parents always have to increase the intensity of the punishment to make it scary enough. It does not need rocket science to understand that this is not helpful and will damage their emotional development.
Another issue with such punishment is the message kids take away from this. It tells that you can use power to make the weaker people obey you. A vicious circle of abusive relations starts from parenting. The verbal abuse and shouting at your kid when they show their discomfort or anxiety are equally damaging.
Corporal punishments teaches the kids that you can use power to make the weaker people obey you.
Withdrawing your love
Things have changed in the past decades. Schools no longer have canes and such punishments have been criminalised by law. However, parents still use variations of verbal and physical abuse to discipline their children. A more acceptable technique now is love withdrawal. Many books on parenting suggest this method to “keep children inline” without using the socially unacceptable abuses. The famous one is the timeout technique where the children are sent to their room or you take off their TV privileges. This sends a message that your love is strictly based on their compliance with the expected behaviour.
We may rationalise this with the argument: “ I love him no matter what, but he needs to know what is good and bad behaviours”. But our intentions do not matter. What matters is how the child perceives your actions. While parents think this withholding of love is temporary, the child may not know this for a fact. The uncertainty of not being loved is unbearable for the little ones.
And the positive reinforcement
If the above-mentioned criticism on parenting styles did not make you uncomfortable, this will. The holy grail of good parenting now is positive reinforcement. Love corporal punishment love withdrawal etc are negative reinforcement where the interaction towards the kids becomes harsh from time to time. Positive reinforcement seems to be the best alternative as you always seem to be nice to your kids. Giving a cookie or a “good job” to make sure they repeat this behaviour. If you find any similarity with training a dog, you are not mistaken.
This puts forward a most important question. What do you want your kids to be? Self-motivated or motivated by circumstances and positive feedback? Alphie Kohn says that the motivation due to positive reinforcement is like an addiction. Kids will only pick up the activities that give them “good-job” from their parents or teachers. They will be more afraid to fail, as the “good-job” expectations are high. You may argue, most of the world works in such rewards. But is that the way you want your children to be motivated?
Don’t forget that positive reinforcement is another way of controlling your child. Delaying their agency to themselves. The author says that such kids are more prone to be vulnerable to peer pressure. This is the reason we see many “well-behaved” kids turning into drug addicts in college. They are simply transferring the agency from parents to their peers.
Unconditional parenting
Let me be honest here. My day to day parenting was a mix of all the approaches (except physical punishment). Whenever Milan used to show discomfort to wear a new shirt of his feet getting wet while walking, I used to show my “I am so sick of it” face. But looking back now, the 5-year-old had to deal with his discomfort and the agony of love withdrawal from me. I had a week of self-reflection after reading the book. Revisiting my past behaviours, observing my approach towards him at different points. When I force him to eat more veggies or make him rush at the last moment to go to school or scold him for not behaving in public, my rationale was I am doing what is good for him. But I cannot do that anymore. I know I am very much a work in progress as a father. At one point he said.
“stop talking. Your words make my brain freeze”.
Then I thought how much I was focusing on lecturing rather than making him understand on his own. I started a parenting journal to keep track of my progress. The last three chapters of the book are the action points towards unconditional parenting. I will talk about it in another week. But for now, there is one major takeaway.
Look from the other point of view
This is one of the hardest things to achieve. It is not only true with the relationship with your children but also with other adults. Once you give some thoughts on why they respond the way they do your response will be much more appropriate and the result will amaze you. Last week I was getting Milan ready for school. I had to cycle for 12 minutes to the school and school gates will close in 20 mins. At that moment he decided to draw something. My immediate reaction was, “not at this 11th hour”. But quickly I managed to get a distant perspective and was able to think from his perspective. I will be denying his joy without any justification. And the worst thing to happen is that we will be late for school by 5 -10 mins. It is not the end of the world I said:
“We have 5 minutes left. If you can finish by that time, it is OK”.
He finished the drawing in 3 minutes and we manage to get it in time. Had I been forceful, he will be cranky all the way. Moreover, he will think that I love him only when he obeys me.
Trust me, this is not an easy task. It demands a lot from you. Sometimes you cannot resist your temper. The author suggests using the time out here. Let the kid know that you are also vulnerable and need some quiet time to calm down. And you can even suggest this to them when they are cranky, but not as a punishment. I have asked my son to remind me to calm down when I become upset. Now he uses this many times!
The one thing I remind myself now is that, I should not use love to control my child. The love should be unconditional and he did not need to “earn” it. The love need to be independent of his success or failure. The greatest pitfall in this pursuit of the unconditional parenting is the fake rationalisation. I dont want to be that parent who acts the same way but thinking that they are in fact unconditional. Words or even understanding does not matter. Actions do.
The whole world is filled with conditional rewards/punishments. Be it at school, workplace or even relationships. Using the same strategy with our children will eliminate the opportunity for making our family safe-heaven with unconditional love. I strongly suggest the book to all parents or people who wish to be parents at some point. On another issue, I will talk about the action points discussed in the book and my personal reflection. Share your thoughts in the comments section. And do share to aspiring parents Adios for now. Have a great week!
Must read for all parents. Thank you for your efforts
Interesting. We all go for 'short cuts' just because we could be tired and impatient. Will read the book.