Potty Time!

Similarly to our attempt at making baby number 2, we are gonna take the chill route with potty training. I am chomping at the bit to be done with diapers, especially since, the girls I was a nanny to, were total pieces of cakes to train.  I really, really don't want to have a nightmare, long, drawn-out, back and forth potty training experience.


We have been doing Elimination Communication, part time, since Penelope was 6 months old.  I was very chilax about that too.  I was perfectly happy to do it part time and not worry about being successful about it.


Since we have been doing EC, the potty has had a presence for a long time.  The potty ain't no big thing to her.  She is not scared of it, or enthralled with it.  It is just there.


For the longest time, Penelope stopped going tee-tee or poo on the toilet.  She refused.  She would go next to the potty, or near the potty, or in the bathroom, but on the floor. 


Again, I just let it go.  And I put no pressure on her.  I would say very simply and even mannered, "let's go tee-tee on the potty next time so I don't have to clean up a mess."  


When she tells me she is about to go, I always asked if she wanted to go on the potty.  When she would say no, I would move on, and not give it another thought. 


A couple of months ago, I bought her some big girl panties.  I was at the mall with my parents and Penelope spied these panties in Macy's and freaked out.  


So I thought, what the hey, lets buy them and see what happens.  Ava, one of the girls I was a nanny to, up and potty trained in pretty much one day.  One day she woke up and she refused to wear diapers, because she wanted to wear princess panties so bad.  


I thought that getting Penelope to wear them around the house, when she normally is just buck naked, might be a good idea and that the feeling of wetness, might motivate her to go on the potty.  


About a month after I bought the panties, she started saying yes, she wanted to go on the potty.  But only for poop.  Not sure what that is about, but I will take it.  She is now back to her EC baby days, of doing all her poos on the potty.


I am no expert in potty training, but I know I don't want to bribe her with M&M's.  I do give her lots and lots of praise when she goes on the potty.  I can't help it.  I am still not sold on the praise is bad theory either.  We sing and dance a potty song and she looooves it.


So we will see how it goes, let her lead the way. 


And now the most important part of the post... cute pictures of my daughter's butt!  Hopefully she won't be mad at me when she is in her twenties.

Princess panties while helping redecorate her playroom!  

This might be one of my favorite baby pics of her.  She was the fattest, cutest baby.

Ok, maybe this one is.   I could eat those thighs!!






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Unconditional Parenting Chapter 8: Love Without Strings Attached

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Chapter 8.  Only two more chapters to go!

This was a really important chapter to read.  It is the one that had the most concrete advice about what to say and do with your children if you want them to feel loved unconditionally.

"The first step is simply to be mindful of the whole issue of unconditional parenting.  The more we're thinking along these lines, reflecting on whether the things we do and say to our kids could reasonably be interpreted as conditional affection (and if so, why), the more likely we are to change what we do."

"Second, we need to get into the habit of asking ourselves a very specific question; "If that comment I just made to my child had been made to me-or if what I just did had been done to me-would I feel unconditionally loved?"

"Even when we disapprove of what they've done and we want them to know it, our reactions should take account of the big picture-specifically, the imperative to make sure they feel loved, and lovable."

Here's how:

Limit the Number of Your Criticisms:
"If kids feel we're impossible to please, they'll just stop trying".
"But the main point is that too much criticism and disapproval may lead a child to feel unworthy."

Limit the Scope of Each Criticism:
"Focus on what's wrong with the specific action (Your voice sounded really unkind just now when you were talking to your sister) rather than implying that there is something wrong with the child ("You're so mean to people!")

Limit the Intensity of Each Criticism:
"Be aware of not only what you are saying but only your body language, your facial expression, your tone of voice.  Any of these communicate more disapproval, and less unconditional love, than you intended."

Look for Alternatives to Criticism:
"Explicit negative evaluations may not be necessary if we simply say what we see ("Jeremy looked kind of sad after you said that to him") and ask questions ("The next time you are feeling frustrated, what do you think you could do instead of pushing?)

"It may sound obvious, but we sometimes seem to forget that, even when kids do rotten things, our goal should not be to make them feel bad, not to stamp out a particular behavior out of existence. Rather, what we want is to influence our the way they think and feel, to help them become people who wouldn't want to act cruelly. And, of course, our other goal is to avoid injuring our relationship with them in the process."

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 7, Principles of Unconditional Parenting

Here are my favorite quotes from Chapter 7.

"Very specific suggestions, ("When your child says x, you should stand at location y and use z tone of voice to utter the following sentence...") are disrespectful to parents and kids alike.  Raising children is not like assembling a home theater system or preparing a casserole, such that you need only follow an expert's instructions to the letter.  No one-size fits all formula can possibly work for every family, nor can it anticipate an infinite number of situations."

"It's harder to make sure children feel loved unconditinoally than it is to just love them."

"It's harder to respond to them in all their complexity than it is to focus just on their behaviors.  It's harder to try to solve problems with them, to give them reasons for doing the right thing (let alone help them formulate their own reasons), than it is to control them with carrots and sticks. "Working with" asks more of us than does "doing to."

Unconditional Parenting Guiding Principles:

1. BE REFLECTIVE
As Piet Hein, the Danish poet and scientist, put it "The errors hardest to condone in other people are one's one."  In short: Be honest with yourself about your motives, Don't stop being troubled by things you do that really are troubling.  And be alert for signs that the way you interact with your children may have drifted toward a controlling style without you even being aware of it."

2. RECONSIDER YOUR REQUETS
"Here's a very unsettling possibility: Perhaps when your child doesn't do what you're demanding, the problem isn't with the child but with what it is you're demanding."

3. KEEP YOUR EYE ON YOUR LONG-TERM GOALS.
"The good news is that when parents do manage to keep their broader objectives in view-indeed, when they focus on anything more ambitious than just getting their kids to obey right this instant-they tend to use better parenting skills and they get better results."

4. PUT THE RELATIONSHIP FIRST
"Being right isn't necessarily what matters. In fact, it matters very little lif your children stiffen when you walk into a room."

5. CHANGE HOW YOU SEE, NOT JUST HOW YOU ACT
"Moreover, to see children's behavior as a teachable moment invites us to include them in the process of solving the problem, which is more likely to be effective."

6. R-E-S-P-E-C-T
"Even parents who obviously love their children don't always act as though they respect them.  Some sound snide or sacrcastic.  They write off their kid's requests, dismiss their feelings of anger, or trivialize their fears.  They interrupt their kids in a way they wouldn't dream of doing to another adult, yet they become incensed when their kids interrupt them.  And they may also talk abou their children in a belittling way"  "Oh, she's just being a prima donna." or "Just ignore her when she acts like that."

7. BE AUTHENTIC
"I don't mean that we should disclose all the intimate details of our lives to our children. Some things we don't tell them until they're old enough, and some things we'll never tell them.  But there's a dimension of genuineness that's missing in the way that some parents act with their kids, and that absense can be keenly felt even if the children can't quite identify what's lacking in, or not quite right about, the relationship"

"My advice is to make a point of apologizing to your child about something at least twice a month.  There are two reasons to apologize. It sets a powerful example. It makes no sense to force children to say their sorry when they are not.  A far more effective way to introduce them to the idea of apologizing is to show them how it's done."

8. TALK LESS, ASK MORE
"Maybe we were so busy trying to get them to see our point of view that we didn't really hear theirs.  To be a great parent is more a fucntion of listening than explaining."

"Our job is to create a sense of safety, to listen without judgment, to make sure they know they won't get into trouble for telling us what they've done or be condemned for what they feel."

9. KEEP THEIR AGES IN MIND
"For example, when a baby starts to cry because you removed an inappropriate item she was playing with, it's fine to distract her with a new game or toy.  But distraction is ineffective and even insulting when applied to an older child, just as it would be if you complained about something that was bothering you only to have your spouse try to change the subject."

10.ATTRIBUTE TO CHILDREN THE BEST POSSIBLE MOTIVE CONSISTENT WITH THE FACTS.
"We usually don't know for sure why a child actedthe way he did." And our beliefs about those reasons can be a self-fulfilling prophecy."

11. DON'T STICK YOUR NO'S IN UNNECESSARILY
" When you come right down to it, the whole process of raising a kid is pretty damned inconvenient, particularly if you want to do it well.  If you're unwilling to give up any of your free time, if you want your house to stay quiet and clean, you might consider raising tropical fish instead."

"People don't get better at coping with unhappiness because they were deliberately made to unhappy when they were young."

12. DON'T BE RIGID
"A foolish consistency is the hallmark of ineffective parenting."


I think this is such a powerful list!

When I read this list, I think it can be applied to our relationships with our spouses, our friends and our family.  Our relationship with our children is no different.

When I read this list and think of how I parent, I think, no problem, this is so easy! I can easily treat Penelope with respect and be self reflective in my parenting style.  But when I read this list and think of my relationship with my husband, I think, there is a lot we could both implement to better our relationship.

What do you think about this list?

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 6, What Holds Us Back?

Here are my favorite quotes from Chapter 6.

"Everything up to this point leads us to one overwhelming question: Why do we do it? If conditional and control-based parenting are really as bad as they say they are-and more important, if they're as bad as scientific research and real-world experience show they are-then why are they so popular? Or to put it differently, what holds so many of us back from being better parents?"

"The reasons we parent as we do might be said to fall roughly into four categories: what we see and hear, what we believe, what we feel and, as a result of all those, what we fear."

"It's the most obvious explanation for why we treat our children as we do: We learned how you're supposed to raise kids from watching how someone raised us."

"The less aware we are of that learning process, the more likely we are to reproduce parenting patterns without bothering to ask whether they make sense.  It takes some effort, some sharp thinking, even some courage to step back and decide which values and rituals ought to find a place in our new families and which ones are pointless and even pernicious."

"Bad discipline is easy.  Very little is asked of us when we respond to children's misbehavior by doing something unpleasant to them. "Doing to" strategies are mostly mindless.  "Working with" strategies, on the other hand, ask a lot more of us."

"Our culture isn't especially supportive of children in general, nor is there a surfeit of fondness for particular children unless they're cute and well behaved."

"If kids are not held in great esteem, it becomes easier for parents, even basically good parents, to treat their own kids disrespectfully."

"A study of more than three hundred parents found that those who held a negative view of human nature were more likely to be very controlling with their kids."

"If we wonder why parent-child relationships are so often adversarial, we have to understand this as one more symptom of a hyper-competitive society.  The moms and dads who are most likely to try to control their children, and who do the most damage to them, are the those who need to win."

"Lots of people believe that when any individual, even a small child, does something bad, then something bad should be done to that individual in return. So many parents see punishment as a moral imperative."

"As a rule, when your basic emotional needs have not been met, those needs don't just vanish when you're older.  Instead, you may continue to try to satisfy them, often in direct and even convoluted ways.  That effort sometimes requires an exhausting, near-constant focus on yourself in order to prove that you really are smart, or attractive or lovable.  What's more, the people who need you to focus on them, notably your children, may find you emotionally unavailable."

"What distinguishes truly great parents is their willingness to confront troubling questions about what they have been doing and what was done to them."

"We're unlikely to meet our long-term goals for our kids unless we're ready to ask the following question: Is it possible that what I just did with them had more to do with my own needs, my fears and my own upbringing than with what's really in their best interest?"


Phew! That was a lot, but it was a very important chapter.  What struck you the deepest?

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 5, Pushed to Succeed

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this chapter:

"As the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm once lamented, "Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their success."

"Obviously, there's nothing wrong with being proud of our kids.  But when the bragging seems excessive-when its too intense, or too frequent, or starts up too quickly-it's possible that the parent's identity is a little too wrapped up in the child's accomplishments."

"There's a huge difference between a student whose objective is to get a good grade and a student whose objective is to solve a problem or understand a story.  What's more, the research suggests that when kids are encouraged to focus on getting better marks in school, three things tend to happen: They lose interest in the learning itself, they try to avoid tasks that are challenging, and they're less likely to think deeply and critically."

"The more we want our children to (1) be lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas, (2) avoid sticking with what's easy and safe, and (3) become sophisticated thinkers, the more we should do everything possible to help them forget about grades.  Better yet, we'd want to encourage teachers and principals to minimize (or even eliminate) the use of grades."

"Some parents don't offer money for straight A's; instead, they pay off their kids with affection and approval.  In effect, they're using their love as a lever to get their kids to succeed-to the point that their children may come to feel as though their parents' positive feelings for them rise and fall with grade point average."

"The research overwhelmingly showed that competition holds people back from working or learning their best."

"To the contrary, people who know they're loved irrespective of their accomplishments often end up accomplishing quite a lot.  Being accepted without conditions helps them to develop a healthy confidence in themselves, a sense that it's safe to take risks and try new things.  From deep contentment comes the courage to achieve."

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 4

Here the quotes that stood out to me from Chapter 4: Punitive Damages.

"To punish kids, very simply, is to make something unpleasant happen to them-or prevent them from experiencing something pleasant-usually with the goal of changing their future behavior. The punisher makes them suffer, in other words, to teach them a lesson."

"Announcing how we plan to punish children ("Remember, if you do x, then I'll do y to you") may salve our conscience because we gave them fair warning, but all we've really done is threaten them.  We've told them in advance exactly how we'll make them suffer if they fail to obey."

"In Punishment Lite, also called "natural consequences", when  a child leaves her raincoat at school, we are supposed to let her get wet the next day. This is said to teach her to be more punctual, less forgetful or whatever.  But the far more powerful lesson that she is likely to take is what we could have helped-but didn't."

"It's hard for kids to sort out why someone who clearly cares for them also makes them suffer from time to time.  It creates a warped idea, which children may carry with them throughout their lives, that causing pain is part of what it means to love them.  Or else it may simply teach that love is necessarily conditional, that it lasts only as long as people do exactly what you want."

"Why Punishment Fails:
-It makes people mad
-It models the use of power
-It eventually loses its effectiveness
-It erodes our relationships with our kids
-It distracts kids from the important issues
-It makes kids more self centered"

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 3

Click here to learn about this book and our book club, check out Chapter 1 and Chapter 2

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Chapter 3, Too Much Control.

"Conditional parenting can be the consequence of control even if it wasn't the intention, and, conversely, control can help to explain the destructive effects of conditional parenting."

"The dominant problem with parenting in our society isn't permissiveness, but the FEAR of permissiveness. We are so worried about spoiling our kids that we often end up overcontrolling them."

"The way many kids are treated suggests a lack of respect for their needs and preferences-in fact, a lack of respect for children, period."

"It's easy for most of us to observe Bad Parenting on Parade, to watch people who are much more controlling that we are, and to take comfort from saying, "At least I'd never do that." But the real challenge is to reflect on the things we have been known to do and ask whether they're really in our children's best interest."

"The kids who do what they're told are likely to be those whose parents DON'T rely on power and instead have developed a warm and secure relationship with them."

"There may be times when some control, in the usual sense, is unavoidable, and here the trick is indeed to avoid overdoing it. Bu rather than just trying to find a happy medium between "too controlling" and "not controlling enough", we need to think in terms of an approach to parenting that's fundamentally different from control."


This chapter really made me think of all the times, as a Nanny, I got into power struggles with the girls over what they were wearing, how much they ate, etc.  I remember thinking, "Danm, I am such good Nanny!", because I usually always got them to eat what I wanted to or wear what I wanted.  I thought I was some master toddler negotiator...but really they were probably just so worried about upsetting me ( not that I ever yelled or screamed at them, but I think even getting frustrated and in a bad mood is way of love withdrawal) and wanting to please me than anything else...that all I really accomplished was breaking their spirit.  Sigh. 

So what did ya'll think about this chapter?  What were your "ah-ha" moments for this chapter?

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 2

I think I like the way I set it up last week, with me posting some of my favorite quotes to get the conversation going, so that's what I am gonna do again!

Here they are in no particular order:

"The parent can either walk away, (which may leave a child sobbing, or crying out in a panic, "Mommy, come back! Come back!) or banish the child to his room or some other place where a parent isn't. This tactic might accurately be called forcible isolation. But that label would make a lot of parents uncomfortable, so a more innocuous term tends to be used instead, one that allows us to avoid facing up to what's really going on. The preferred euphemism, as perhaps you've guessed, is time-out."

"Time-out is actually an abbreviation for time out from positive reinforcement. The practice was developed almost half a century ago as a way of training LABORATORY ANIMALS."

"For many people, the first question would be whether this approach works. Once again, however, that proves to be a more complicated matter than it may seem. We have to ask, "Works to do what?"

"Spanking and time-out, both communicate to children that if they do something we don't like, we'll make them suffer in order to change their behavior. The only remaining question is how we'll make them suffer: by causing physical pain through hitting, or by causing emotional pain through enforced isolation."

"Intrinsic motivation basically means you like what you're doing for its own sake, whereas extrinsic motivation means you do something as a means to an end- in order to get a reward or avoid a punishment. It's the difference between reading a book because you want to find out what happens in the next chapter and reading because you've been promised a sticker or a pizza for doing so."

"The more that people are rewarded for doing something, the more likely they are to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward."

What grabbed you the most this chapter? How damaging time-outs are or that rewards are just as damaging? Or both?

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Conditional Parenting

I am having serious writer's block for some reason.   I think its because I have so much to say on this topic, I don't know where to start!!

So, I am just going to open up the flood gates and ask, what do ya''ll think??


These are some of my favorite quotes from the first chapter:

"We ought to love them, for no good reason, and furthermore, what counts is not just that we believe we love unconditionally, but that they feel loved in that way."

"Whatever lesson we hoped to impart was far more likely to be learned if she knew that our love her was undimmed by how she had acted."

"Compulsory apologies mostly train children to say things they don't mean--that is, to lie."

"In our society, we are taught that good things must always be earned, never given away."

"Ultimately, conditional parenting reflects a tendency to to see almost every human interaction, even among family members, as kind of economic transaction."

"Unconditional parenting insists that the family ought to be a haven, a refuge, from such transactions.  Love from parents is purely and simply a gift.  It is something to which all children are entitled."

So tell me, tell me, what were your favorite parts of the first chapter?  What parts struck in your heart and felt profound?

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.