Unconditional Parenting

[maybebaby3]

And they get stickers and certificates at school for good work and behaviour

 

[Dragonfly]

They punish in pre school :O I didnt know that. I thought all that was up to parents. Mine is going in to pre school this year and I will be inquiring. Though with UP children they tend to be less misbehaved anyway. I remember star charts when I was in school I always got the least. I was actually the most shy girl in my class and was to scared to even answer a question., I had no self esteem so I failed a lot, stars didnt help me do any better at all just highlighted more of the failure I was. but thats because I was so shy and had bad self esteem from my mum anyway. She always treated me like a burden.

 

[Tacey]

maybebaby - I'm not at that stage yet (and plan to home ed anyway,) but I think children can be flexible. You are the primary influence, and that's what matters. I admit, very behaviourist rules in school do irritate me - and I was a teacher! But I think children can cope with different set ups in different places. For example, I don't ask my relatives to avoid praising Alice as we do at home. I think it won't make much difference.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

My question of the day. Alice has mini outbursts at the moment. If you put the wrong thing on her plate, she throws handfuls of food on to the floor, or if her Duplo tower breaks, she throws it across the room. Generally, that's the end of it and she's happy and smiley. In the case of the Duplo, I've been ignoring it, although with the food I take her plate and ask her why I don't want food throwing. Not sure if I'm going about it the right way. We've had a few abortive attempts at talking bout her feelings, but I don't think she's old enough to analyse them yet. How would everyone deal with these sort of things?

Same as you. We explain why we don't want her doing the thing, that if she is finding something difficult then just ask mummy or daddy to help. We take stuff off her if someone's going to get hurt and explain why.

We sometimes find it difficult not to resort to ignoring Ruby's outbursts though because seriously, nothing we do or say is right sometimes! E.g this afternoon - I asked Ruby if she wanted a sandwich with OH and I as we were having one. She said no, she just wanted bread on its own. Fine, I got her that and she ate it, and again I asked her if she wanted a sandwich. She said no again. I made the sandwiches for us and she asked to share mine. So I cut a bit off mine for her and gave it to her. She then had a total meltdown screaming that she wanted her own, and tried to take the rest of my sandwich which I didn't let her do. She really screamed for several minutes and nothing we did / said helped. We just sat with her as she screamed, ignoring her really, not sure what else we could have done. When she'd calmed down I said to her, it's difficult when we don't know what we want, and sometimes we feel sad and don't know why, and that's ok. Then we had a cuddle. But that probably meant nothing to her, I don't know!

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

maybebaby - I'm not at that stage yet (and plan to home ed anyway,) but I think children can be flexible. You are the primary influence, and that's what matters. I admit, very behaviourist rules in school do irritate me - and I was a teacher! But I think children can cope with different set ups in different places. For example, I don't ask my relatives to avoid praising Alice as we do at home. I think it won't make much difference.

This is what I think, parents are the primary influence and also the most consistent presence, so our approach is what matters most by far.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

I do wonder if much has changed in schools now with regard to behaviour management, some of the things that happened when I was at school would annoy me so much, e.g whole class being punished for one person's misbehaviour, ugh

 

[Tacey]

We sometimes find it difficult not to resort to ignoring Ruby's outbursts though because seriously, nothing we do or say is right sometimes! E.g this afternoon - I asked Ruby if she wanted a sandwich with OH and I as we were having one. She said no, she just wanted bread on its own. Fine, I got her that and she ate it, and again I asked her if she wanted a sandwich. She said no again. I made the sandwiches for us and she asked to share mine. So I cut a bit off mine for her and gave it to her. She then had a total meltdown screaming that she wanted her own, and tried to take the rest of my sandwich which I didn't let her do. She really screamed for several minutes and nothing we did / said helped. We just sat with her as she screamed, ignoring her really, not sure what else we could have done. When she'd calmed down I said to her, it's difficult when we don't know what we want, and sometimes we feel sad and don't know why, and that's ok. Then we had a cuddle. But that probably meant nothing to her, I don't know!

That sounds very familiar! In fact, Alice is often worse if I talk to her or touch her. I generally say (while she takes a breath to scream some more!) that I can give her a cuddle if she needs me to. I often think she's not listening, but more often than not, she comes up to me after a while and tells me she needs a cuddle. I've been thinking of setting up a calm down area for her to go to if she's really cross or upset. Not sure if she's old enough yet to understand it though.

 

[Miss_Bump]

I find myself saying to Evie that it's ok to be sad/scared/cross (that's such a mum word lol )

She doesn't have a typical 'tantrum' tho with the whole screaming and flinging limbs but she will just burst into tears. Is this different? Or is it just her way of doing things?

A few days ago she piled loads of soft toys into her pram and couldn't get anymore in as it was so full and thu kept falling out.

She came up to me and said 'mummy show me' so I tried to fit them all in and they kept falling out and she just cried

She is happy to have a cuddle and I say it's ok to be sad etc but is that a tantrum????

 

[Tacey]

I find myself saying to Evie that it's ok to be sad/scared/cross (that's such a mum word lol )

She doesn't have a typical 'tantrum' tho with the whole screaming and flinging limbs but she will just burst into tears. Is this different? Or is it just her way of doing things?

A few days ago she piled loads of soft toys into her pram and couldn't get anymore in as it was so full and thu kept falling out.

She came up to me and said 'mummy show me' so I tried to fit them all in and they kept falling out and she just cried

She is happy to have a cuddle and I say it's ok to be sad etc but is that a tantrum????

We have those sorts of episodes too. When Alice is sad she often falls on the floor and buries her face in her hands like the world is ending. Her tantrums are more angry than sad though, and generally involve throwing and screaming at the moment. She's had phases of hitting and scratching herself/me. They're really scary when she gets going. Sometimes she even foams and dribbles and writhes about on the floor She's always been an all or nothing kind of girl.

 

[Miss_Bump]

Yes its like the world is going to end for her and she sobs!

If I ask her what's wrong she will try and talk and end up babbling and crying more.

We definatley hug it out. We hug everything out.

I know when she gets angry tho as she frowns and sometimes purses her lips and will wag a finger no idea where she has learnt the finger wag from

 

[Tacey]

I love the image of the finger wagging!

 

[buddyIV]

Hi ladies

Thanks for responding to my question regarding how your OH's feel about UP... I'm glad to hear you've all got support with it. It can be a little bit alienating when you're approach to parenting differs slightly from the norm; I've found myself getting some incredulous looks when I even hint at some of the principles of UP (mostly from family...my friends are pretty supportive).

I have to be honest though, I've not really forced the issue with my OH. I'm getting the book soon, and will talk about it with him and see what he makes of it. I know he'll be open-minded though


Just to add my tuppence worth to the convo:

My LO's a bit younger, and has only just started having tantrum-like behaviour, mostly when he's starting to get a little tired. So far I've just cuddled him, and let him get it out. Once he's starting to calm down, I ask him to look at me (I feel like eye-contact is a nice way of making sure he knows I'm focussing just on him...but maybe it's intimidating???) and I talk to him calmly, and with as empathetic a tone as I can muster: I tell him I understand why he's upset, and explain why X, Y, Z happened. This seems to work for the time being (and he genuinely seems to understand that I'm trying to help), but I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tantruming toddlers!

Now that I'm on-board with UP, I'm starting to notice how ubiqituous and empty the "good boy" praise is! People say it to LO just because he's managed to put a carrot into his mouth, or because he flicked the page of a book...it's like a verbal tic with some people.

Can I ask though, would this kind of sentence be permissable: "I love the yellow in this painting, it's so vibrant. You're so creative! Did you enjoy painting it?" I said it earlier to LO, and wondered about the "so creative" bit...

 

[maybebaby3]

I do wonder if much has changed in schools now with regard to behaviour management, some of the things that happened when I was at school would annoy me so much, e.g whole class being punished for one person's misbehaviour, ugh

I'm a teacher and dont punish like that. it's unfair to punish everyone coz of one person

 

[Dragonfly]

We where punished in school as a class if one didnt tout on the other. I remember once one of the fellas threw something at the teacher and the whole class was kept in and we all had to write out a statement of what we saw, course we all pretended to see nothing. lol

 

[Miss_Bump]

Evie has started hitting

She has a friend the same age who hits and sometimes hits her. It's never hard and he laughs after so Evie thinks its a game.

I explain that hitting make mummy feel sad and to do xyz instead

Any other ideas?

 

[Siyren]

oooh ive been wondering about the hitting- lyss has just started.
hows everyone, ive been a bit absent from bnb x

 

[Siyren]

oooh my question of the day before i forget is how do you guys feel about doing things lile reading programs at the library?
lyss is in the "book crawl" program at our local library, every time i take some books out she gets a sticker on a card and every 4 stickers she gets a certificate.
my SIL was very "a reward for reading, i think not!!!"
where as i just see it as a bit of fun, we can look back on the certificates when she's older and she certainly doesnt see them as a reward if that makes sense and i dont treat the system as a reward, its just something we do if that makes sense, another part of her week

thoughtS??

 

[Tacey]

oooh my question of the day before i forget is how do you guys feel about doing things lile reading programs at the library?
lyss is in the "book crawl" program at our local library, every time i take some books out she gets a sticker on a card and every 4 stickers she gets a certificate.
my SIL was very "a reward for reading, i think not!!!"
where as i just see it as a bit of fun, we can look back on the certificates when she's older and she certainly doesnt see them as a reward if that makes sense and i dont treat the system as a reward, its just something we do if that makes sense, another part of her week

thoughtS??

That's interesting, we've just got one of those too, and the thought hadn't crossed my mind! I can see where your SIL is coming from, but I think I'm with you. I don't think Alice would see it as a reward, after all, I'm the one getting the books out then sitting reading with her!

 

[Miss_Bump]

We get the stickers and certificates at the library too.

All the do at ours is just put the new sticker on her card. Noone says 'this sticker is for being good' or 'well done for coming to the library'

Evie doesn't really collect them anyway, she takes them off her card and puts them on her coat lol

 

[Siyren]

lol lyss is the same- she sticks them on her bear and tells him he looks pretty
at our library they just hand me the sticker as i take her books out- she doesnt even know she gets certifictes lmao!
thanks for the thoughts girls