"Parents Should Never Punish Their Kids"

[Anonymous]

First it was no spanking, then it was no time outs. Now no punishment of any kind?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/04/07/alan_kazdin_says_parents_should_never_punish_their_kids_really.html

[Anonymous]

Kids have different temperaments and there's no one strategy that works for them all.

[Anonymous]

I don't punish my kids. Does that seem weird to you?

[Anonymous]

I do a lot of this with my son. I'm not perfect. But I completely agree that kids (anyone) habituate to punishment and it becomes increasingly less effective.

And largely, it's been successful. I don't know if I would have had the patience to use this approach if I had had more than one kid. And he's 9. Let's see how this investment pays off in the crazy teen years. I don't know that yet.

It's interesting too. I owned a dog before I had a kid. When I got the dog, all the rescue people said to use positive reinforcement. Don't punish. They don't understand being punished. We grew up punishing our dogs, so I had to unlearn everything I had seen. I did have to change a lot. And I had a much better behaved dog as an adult.

And yes, I just compared raising a dog to raising a child. I see a lot of similarities.

[Anonymous]

Using constant positive reinforcement for the behaviors you want with a difficult child is actually exhausting, OP. It's a 24/7 enterprise. It's much easier to yell or punish. So really, when you screech "No punishment of any kind," you might consider that you are taking the much easier path when you punish.

[Anonymous]

I have heard of this author in conjunction with his well-known method for handling very difficult children. It works with the most defiant kids who who seem intractable. I read his book a few years ago when my child, who has special needs, was going through an especially rough time. It works, it really works, but it is so hard for the parent. It requires utmost consistency and constant attention to child's behavior. Once my child moved through this difficult phase, we reverted back to standard methods, a typical combination of praise and punishment, not because I don't believe what the man is saying but because his method demands a lot more effort. In sum: I really admire his work and think that it is the absolute approach for very difficult children BUT that most parents simply will not maintain such a sustained effort if they don't need to.

[Anonymous]

What a moron.

[Anonymous]

Aren't there other threads on here complaining that millenials are constantly looking for positive praise at work for every little task they do? This is the kind of disciplining method that sets them up to be adults who can't move on to the next task without making sure 3 other people are giving them a "good job!"

I think positive discipline is great, but I think there's a time and place for boundaries. Telling a kid "good job for not hitting your sister this morning!" "You didn't run into the street without looking for cars just now!" Sets the kids up for low low low standards of behavior. I barely have to be nice and I get praise--not a bad deal here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a moron.

+1.

I get the gist but agree with the author's end that sometimes a time out is for the parent.

This is one of those things that sounds good on paper or in theory but doesn't really take into account that kids and parents are human and sometimes emotional. Gently asking Snookums to pick up his toys as he is entering meltdown mode is not going to cut it all the time.

[Anonymous]

Heh.

I don't like this guy because we don't punish, but we don't do praise, either.

See also: Alfie Kohn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a moron.

+1.

I get the gist but agree with the author's end that sometimes a time out is for the parent.

This is one of those things that sounds good on paper or in theory but doesn't really take into account that kids and parents are human and sometimes emotional. Gently asking Snookums to pick up his toys as he is entering meltdown mode is not going to cut it all the time.

Yeah, but that's a false dichotomy. You don't necessarily have to punish, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do a lot of this with my son. I'm not perfect. But I completely agree that kids (anyone) habituate to punishment and it becomes increasingly less effective.

And largely, it's been successful. I don't know if I would have had the patience to use this approach if I had had more than one kid. And he's 9. Let's see how this investment pays off in the crazy teen years. I don't know that yet.

It's interesting too. I owned a dog before I had a kid. When I got the dog, all the rescue people said to use positive reinforcement. Don't punish. They don't understand being punished. We grew up punishing our dogs, so I had to unlearn everything I had seen. I did have to change a lot. And I had a much better behaved dog as an adult.

And yes, I just compared raising a dog to raising a child. I see a lot of similarities.

I mean, Alfie Kohn would have a field day with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heh.

I don't like this guy because we don't punish, but we don't do praise, either.

See also: Alfie Kohn.

+1

I don't do rewards, praise, *or* punishment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there other threads on here complaining that millenials are constantly looking for positive praise at work for every little task they do? This is the kind of disciplining method that sets them up to be adults who can't move on to the next task without making sure 3 other people are giving them a "good job!"

I think positive discipline is great, but I think there's a time and place for boundaries. Telling a kid "good job for not hitting your sister this morning!" "You didn't run into the street without looking for cars just now!" Sets the kids up for low low low standards of behavior. I barely have to be nice and I get praise--not a bad deal here.

I don't think you understand his method. I use the method with my kids and I rarely punish them. The most I do is separate them when they are fighting too much.

The method does not involve non-stop praising for nothing. You pick a target behavior - say hitting. You teach them what to do when they are frustrated so that they don't hit. Our son was a hitter. We taught our son to tell an adult or walk when he got really frustrated. When he employed the technique, we gave him tons of praise and a reward. We would give him poker chips that he could trade for screen time. We did this intensively for about 3 weeks. At 3 weeks, the behavior was internalized. The hitting stopped and we dialed down the praise and scaled back on the rewards. This was 3 years ago. My son is now 7 and deals with frustration really well. We have taught him to negotiate with his brothers and use other more sophisticated problem-solving techniques. We no longer praise him or reward him for not hitting because hitting is not an issue at all. He hasn't behaved like that since he was 4. The idea behind the Kazdin method is to get the behavior to become internalized.

The more you use the Kazdin method, the more your child will internalize good behavior and the less you have to use the method. With my 7-yead-old, we pretty much never use the Kazdin method because he is very calm and rational. He is calm and rational partly because we used the Kazdin method to teach him to be calm and rational.

I think it is great. You get well-behaved kids without yelling, punishing, time-outs, etc., and eventually you use very little positive reinforcement too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do a lot of this with my son. I'm not perfect. But I completely agree that kids (anyone) habituate to punishment and it becomes increasingly less effective.

And largely, it's been successful. I don't know if I would have had the patience to use this approach if I had had more than one kid. And he's 9. Let's see how this investment pays off in the crazy teen years. I don't know that yet.

It's interesting too. I owned a dog before I had a kid. When I got the dog, all the rescue people said to use positive reinforcement. Don't punish. They don't understand being punished. We grew up punishing our dogs, so I had to unlearn everything I had seen. I did have to change a lot. And I had a much better behaved dog as an adult.

And yes, I just compared raising a dog to raising a child. I see a lot of similarities.

I mean, Alfie Kohn would have a field day with this.

Does it really matter if I have a well-behaved, happy, confident, and empathetic kid?