Unconditional Parenting
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DVD Cover Information
DVD: Region Code 0Format: NTSC
DVD Release Date: 2006-07-13
Studio: CustomFlix
Movie Reviews of Unconditional Parenting
Movie Review: Revolutionary and Thought-Provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, even if you're not 100% sold on Alfie Kohn's revolutionary (although it really shouldn't be) parenting and teaching ideas, this video is fantastic. Relative to most parenting videos and books, this one is full of fresh and provocative ideas that challenge and inform. Plus, my husband and I found ourselves laughing throughout the video, as Kohn manages to inject a lot of humor and entertaining points into his talks.
Substance-wise, this DVD lecture is something every parent should hear. Kohn uses reason and decades of psychological research to show how traditional methods of punishment and rewards (everything from the hickory stick to the sticker chart) may produce (in some kids) temporary compliance, but at a high cost in terms of long-term moral and emotional development, psychological intrinsic motivation, parent-child relationship, and on and on.
As the parent of two preschoolers, I have experienced very, very strong pressure from other adults to manipulate (and/or spank) my kids into submission and compliance. Frankly, as someone who's always been largely controlled by external rewards and punishments myself, I have found myself recently giving into others' control-oriented parenting systems and ignoring my own better judgement. After all, everyone was always telling me to, and my kids certainly are no model children, so I supposed I was wrong to try and "work with" my kids rather than just invoking my power to get them to do what we adults want them to do ("doing to" them). Some adults would argue that my kids wanted the "security" of knowing their "limits," and my compromising and working with them was actually causing them "anxiety"!
Kohn has lent a lot of support to my original mothering instincts--If I want my kids to have imagination, compassion, patience, initiative, planning ability and all those other good things IN THE LONG-TERM, I'd better parent to that end. (I can start by modeling those things as their mother in my relationship with them!) If I want SHORT-TERM compliance and to teach my kids to use power, force, praise, attention and other forms of manipulation to control others, then I can go ahead and keep parenting by everyone else's standards. I've already heard my 5-year old daughter repeatedly say things like, "Mommy, if you don't let me have the candy, I'm not going to play with you tonight." She tries to invoke the wee bit of power that she has as a very small and largely powerless child in order to get me to do what she wants. It's sad. Do we spend time together because we enjoy each other's company, or do we do it as a reward for compliance with our requests? The outside world may operate on a quid pro quo basis, but is that the level of relationship I want with my child?
Indeed, the more I reflect on Kohn's talk, the more I realize that our whole society operates almost exclusively on the principle that people need extrinsic punishments and rewards to get them to do what the powerful (i.e., those who set up those systems of rewards and punishments up) want. No one seems to truly care about how others feel on the inside, but only about how they act and look on the outside. The outside is how we measure success in almost every dimension of adult life: having wealth, beauty, prestige and well-behaved beautiful children attending Yale! Clearly, with our society's level of drug abuse, violence and so forth, this isn't working too well. Kohn doesn't address how society ought to treat its members, but his lessons and insights certainly raise some questions beyond how to get our kids ready for school on time.
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