Alfie Kohn

It's 2:00 a.m. and I just finished reading the Introduction and Chapter One to Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting. Even though I'm only 5% of the way through the book, I've already highlighted about 75% of the text there. Kohn has artfully communicated (and provided ample research evidence for) what I believe deep down but have not been able to fully attempt in my own parenting style because (1) I received conditional parenting, and (2) I've been deeply conditioned by my environment to focus on producing well-behaved and cooperative children.

From the publisher:

Most parenting guides begin with the question “How can we get kids to do what they're told?” and then proceed to offer various techniques for controlling them. In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking, “What do kids need—and how can we meet those needs?” What follows from that question are ideas for working with children rather than doing things to them.

More than just another book about discipline, though, Unconditional Parenting addresses the ways parents think about, feel about, and act with their children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about raising kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from “doing to” to “working with” parenting—including how to replace praise with the unconditional support that children need to grow into healthy, caring, responsible people. This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will reconnect readers to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better parents.

From my own notes:

Kohn is so right. I own and have read so many books about parenting, ranging from how to sleep train babies, how to talk so kids will listen, how to set boundaries... and it's all about modifying the behavior of the child so that parents can feel a sense of control (and sanity). 

As parents, we are fixated on immediate compliance and what we demand from our children, rather than considering what our children need and seeing the whole child rather than the behavior.

Our love for our children is conditional upon their good behavior, or achievement in academics, sports or other talents/skills. A quote from the book: "It's possible to love our children passionately, but not in the way they need to be loved." It doesn’t matter how much we love them, it’s HOW we love them.

We all protest, "Of course we love our children no matter what, we love them unconditionally."

Well, here are some of the beliefs held by those who use conditional parenting to raise their children. Do any of these ring a bell? 

-  If children misbehave or do poorly on a test, then they need to be punished. 
-  Rewarding them under such circumstances will only lead to them misbehaving more or continuing to do poorly on tests. 
-  If kids misbehave or don't do as they're told, we must not hug and show affection towards them, we must not give them ice-cream, we must not read them a bedtime story... we will withhold love from them. 

What lesson does the child learn from this? What kind of person will this child become? 

When we expend all our efforts giving top priority to short-term obedience and super-kid achievement, what are the long-term implications? 

Most parents, when asked what long-term goals they have for their children, answer that they want their children to be happy, balanced, independent, fulfilled, productive, kind, thoughtful, loving, inquisitive, and confident. Do our daily actions toward our children encourage them to become all these adjectives we hope to ascribe to them one day?

We are most proud of our children when they get good grades, win competitions, behave the way we want them to behave. A "good" child is one who is polite, quiet and not much trouble to us grown-ups. Is that our dream for our children, that they grow up to be "not much trouble"? If the answer is "no", then why do we behave and act in our daily interactions with our children as though quiet and well-behaved ARE the ONLY goals we have for them?

To all my friends raising children, and especially those whose children attend local Hong Kong schools with a very traditional system of rewards and metrics-based testing: please read this mind-blowing book NOW. 

(Book also translated into Chinese.)

CCC

Two books that teach children how to help others

Authors help children to see a way of life and financial circumstance that is completely different from their own

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 30 June, 2015, 6:03am

UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 June, 2015, 6:03am

Annie Ho life@scmp.com

Every one of us starts life as an egocentric baby, concerned only with having our own needs fulfilled. Somewhere along the road to adulthood, we all become less self-centred, to varying degrees. Some children are so protected from growing pains that they never let go of their self-centredness. Others grow up in an environment that lets them become empathetic and aware of others' feelings.

I was fortunate to have parents who valued volunteerism and community. As far as they could, they lived each day, putting the needs of others ahead of their own. This included participating in micro-loans to help friends through difficulties. Hui are loan clubs entrenched in Chinese society and extensively relied upon by the Chinese diaspora. My parents never turned down an invitation to join a loan club. With nothing more than a handshake, it was a win-win proposition that relied on mutual trust. My parents understood that, for the initiators of the loan clubs, the effect of this pooled support ranged from convenience to life-changing impact.

Katie Smith Milway explores its life-changing aspect in One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference. Part of the CitizenKid series of books, which uses fiction and non-fiction stories to inform and inspire children as global citizens, One Hen is about a boy whose mother receives a small loan from some village families after his father dies. The boy uses some of the money to buy one hen; it grows to 25 hens by the end of one year, and eventually becomes the largest poultry farm in Ghana.

I appreciate the idea of teaching people to help themselves. It seems to provide more sustainable outcomes than simply giving hand-outs.

As a result, I spend most of my free time volunteering with two local non-profit organisations that focus on training, including Bring Me A Book Hong Kong. Besides donating picture books, it focuses on training parents and teachers on the art and science of reading aloud to children.

Beatrice's Goat, a picture book by Page McBrier, tells the story of an impoverished family that was taught to help itself. Beatrice's family was given a goat by Heifer Project International, a non-profit organisation that seeks to end global hunger by providing livestock to poor communities around the world. The titular goat provides enough milk to feed Beatrice and her five siblings, with a surplus to sell for profit. In the end, Beatrice's dream to be a schoolgirl comes true.

These two books help children to see a way of life and financial circumstance that is completely different from their own. It's inspiring to know that, in the developing world, one simple hen or goat can bring about such change to a family and its community.

To build tolerance and compassion in children, parents can expose them to other families and societies. We read with horror news stories about rural farmers who sell their own daughters to support their families. Until you understand the abject poverty that they are fighting to overcome, you cannot feel compassion for such families. And when you feel compassion for them, you will be motivated to help them.

To help children find their own "something", Ellen Sabin's The Giving Book is an interactive tool that "helps them record their ideas, dreams and wishes for the world - making them the authors of their stories and creating a 'scrapbook' of their journey into compassion, philanthropy and the power of their actions."

Families who want to learn more about local children-related charities can visit the Children Charities Carnival on Sunday, from noon to 5pm at Dream Kids Club in Chai Wan. Visit their Facebook page or email ccc@prestique.com for more details.

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation promoting family literacy

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Books that teach how to give back

Boundaries with Kids

Parents need to agree about how to raise children. Here's a book that helps

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 02 June, 2015, 6:48am

UPDATED : Tuesday, 02 June, 2015, 6:48am

Annie Ho life@scmp.com

My husband and I never argued until our children came along. At first, we blamed the kids. Then we blamed the stress of parenting, both external and self-imposed. And finally, we began to see that our differences stemmed from the way we were brought up.

It hadn't occurred to us we had any cultural differences because we are both ethnic Chinese. However, he was raised in Hong Kong and I grew up in Canada. The big picture is the same for all parents: to raise their children to become happy, loving and responsible adults. Where many of us differ from our co-parent is the means to that end.

I was enlightened by Drs Henry Cloud and John Townsend's Boundaries with Kids, and immediately shared my heavily highlighted copy with my husband.

An important lesson that is best taught early on is self-discipline. Rather than labelling children as naughty or nice, we need only consider whether they have self-discipline or not. Today's children are not provided with the opportunities to learn self-discipline because parents have a fear of seeing their children suffering, displeased or unhappy.

In the 19th century, the notion that parents existed for the sake of their children was unheard of. Our child-centric family culture has taken form only in recent decades. Children and their feelings were neglected, or at least considered to be not worthy of concern, well into the 1960s. Although she might be deemed an incompetent mother by today's standards, Betty Francis (the former Mrs Draper) in the television series Mad Men was probably typical of her era.

I'm not suggesting that we regress to Victorian child-rearing practices; a child's mental and psychological well-being should be held in the same regard as his physical well-being. Cloud and Townsend state parents do need to empathise with their children's feelings. However, they are unable to delay their children's gratification because they "over-identify" with their children's pain, fear and loneliness.

The authors suggest: "Some parents confuse their own painful feelings with their child's, thinking that the child is in more trouble than he actually is. What might be discomfort for the toddler is seen as trauma by the mother; what may be anxiety for the teen is experienced as panic by the father."

As parents, we need to distinguish between hurt and harm. When a child cries because his parents are leaving him at home to go out to dinner, he is unhappy about being left behind. Some parents may cancel dinner and stay home, believing that doing so will help the child to feel safe and happy.

Before making the decision to stay or go, parents need to ask themselves whether leaving their well-loved child in a safe environment under these circumstances is harming the child, or merely hurting the child. Hurt doesn't have long-term implications and is necessary for a child to grow and develop.

On the other hand, parents should try their best to not only protect their child from harm, but also ensure they are not the ones inflicting that harm on their child. There is no harm in having a child experience separation from his parents while they spend a few hours dining at a restaurant. And parents need to willingly allow their child to be occasionally hurt.

Cloud and Townsend explain when a well-loved child cries in protest about his parents going out without him, "his tears are not the wounds of an unloved person, but the normal grief of a [child] who needs to learn to handle mum's absences".

After reading and discussing Boundaries with Kids, my husband and I were able to agree on a plan for developing a consistent style for raising our children together. This book helped us understand each other's parenting styles and enabled us to see how the way we were raised greatly informed the kind of parent we've become.

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me A Book Hong Kong bringmeabook.org.hk a non-profit organisation advocating for family literacy

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Parents with perimeters