Virtual Book Club: Unconditional Parenting, Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

This book has Blown. My. Mind.

I feel so blessed to have read this book BEFORE Penelope started doing behaviors that would have led me to do positive reinforcement or time-outs to try and change her behavior. Reading it, made me feel sick to my stomach, as I thought back to all the times I said "good job" to Ava and Ella (the girls I was a nanny to for years) and put them in time-out. I knew that spanking was off the table, but before reading this book, I thought time-outs, done a kind and respectful way was perfectly acceptable. By using punishments and rewards, I was conveying to them that I only loved them when they pleased me or impressed me or did what I asked, when I asked. I had no idea how much damage I was doing and I feel awful.

But as a friend of mine put it when talking about vaccines, "when you know better you do better."

I am going to do better with Penelope. And I invite you to read this book to do better to. Even if you have a much older child, even a teenager (even if your child is an adult for that matter!), its never too late to make a change and be a better parent.

Below is not my writing but a mix of excerpts from the book and summaries found online:

Most advice for parents begins with the question...How can we get kids to do what they're told? -- and then proceeds to offer various techniques for controlling them.

In his landmark book Unconditional Parenting (and in his DVD) Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking, What are our long-term goals for our children? It follows that we need to work WITH them, rather than doing things TO them, in order to reach those goals.

Kohn argues that punishments (including time-outs) and rewards (including positive reinforcement, like saying "Good job!") may sometimes produce temporary compliance, but they do nothing to help kids grow into responsible, caring, ethical, happy people. Moreover, he suggests that permissiveness is less worrisome than a fear of permissiveness that leads us to over control our children. Kohn offers ten important guidelines to help viewers reconnect to their own best instincts as parents.


If you are practicing Attachment Parenting, this is a must read. So much of the Attachment Parenting guidelines are in place to help you have a strong and loving relationship with your child, so that your child feels unconditionally loved. Because unconditionally loved children grow up to be responsible, ethical, caring, happy adults.  But as they get older, we may loose some of our Attachment Parenting foundations because every single parenting book out there is telling us to do time outs and grounding and that maintaining control is the utmost priority.

This book totally turned me on my head and showed me another way. I knew I wanted to be a different parent than how I was parented, but I wasn't exactly sure what that looked like. I knew I was going to be an Attached Parent, but I didn't know what that looked like past infancy.

I am so excited about this book that I want to share it with you. It has changed the course of my parenting journey and I invite you to change yours.

Join me in a virtual book club! Start reading Unconditional Parenting at any time and join in on the discussion here starting December 10, 2010.