Three quick take-away
1/ Any practices meant to reward or punish a specific behaviour are probably not right.
Those parenting practices are so common around parents nowadays. It can be grounding or praise of kids` academic performance, which may seem harmless but have consequences. This will thwart children`s intrinsic motivation of doing things. The praise from parents may trigger a strong tendency to please parents when performing. This kind of behavioural approach is short-sighted and often fosters a tendency to rebel during teenage years. It may work better if parents could take time to listen, understand why and then respond to help children.
2/ The wrong ways of conditional parenting usually include do not accept children as they are and do not willing to have the capacity to understand.
A mistake given by Alfie is to have unrealistic expectations neglecting their ages.
3/ When we say no to our child, we shall always make them feel loved.
Some useful tactics include reducing the scope, number and intensity of criticism and may be to seek alternative like describing what we see to help them see. To me, I love the tactic of defining the scope, when communicating, we may want to communicate very clearly what specifically we do not look at their certain behaviours in a positive light.
What groups of people do I think this book is for?
Parents
Teenagers
Educators
Everyone
What are some of the other appropriate uses of this book other than parenting? Yes. It helped me to wonder about my parents` parenting styles and try to be empathetic about them. I think this is a good book for frustrated teenagers. More importantly, anyone could use this book to do self-parenting and better empathize with himself. After all, we are still that kid who experiences certain emotions and thought patterns repeatedly even when we do not want to admit how vulnerable we were back then.
Some of the interesting quotations
Grades and achievement
A quest for good grades often leads students to think in a more shallow and superficial way (p81). They may skim books for what they`ll need to know,” doing what`s required and no more. Kids who are good at this game will pass the test, get an A and please their parents. They do not get the value during the process by thinking deeper and asking thoughtful questions.
Even when parents want their children to succeed, to be tough is usually wrong because we want them to grow and develop interests into what they do (p162).
Handling children`s “bad”
We should always give a child a choice of retreating to a comfortable place when he is mad (p147).
When children are acting in unacceptable ways, refuse to take the bait and reassure them: I will never stop loving them (p152).
The problem of what some experts suggest: Make a threat on what you will really do. If it is morally bad, you don`t even mention it (I did not jot down the page number for this).
Only intervene and say no when things are clear-cut (p133)
Communication tactics
Definitely make our love unrelated to how the kids perform (p161).
We are not always pleased when raising a child and children will see. That is why it is so important to always ensure our basic acceptance is given (p154).
We also need to be in a good mood to help the children to recognize our love for them is unconditional (p157).
Ask questions based on growth over results (p161).
The author suggested to apologize to our children at least twice a month.
1/ It sets a powerful example on how it is done.
2/ It reminds your kids you are fallible (Did not have a chance to jot down the page number)
Stay near and keep quiet to honor children`s experiences when feeling sad (p129)
Mindset
Treat children as we wish ourselves had been treated, rather than how we were treated (115)
The fear of being powerless makes us pretend we are strong as adults (p109).
Psychological theories
Children may be put in a position if they feel their job is to keep their parents happy, to assure them, to make them capable. Children can be made into becoming a friend or even a parent to the parent. The child`s own development could be warped when the adult`s needs have taken the centre stage (p107).
If your own needs are not satisfied as a child, you have to keep satisfying those needs in adulthood (p107).
According to Baumrind, our power style as a parent roams between authoritarian and permissive (p105). And we have to find our own balance on the axis: authoritative.
According to Alice Miller, many people pass on the cruel deeds and attitudes to which they were subjected as children, so that they can continue to idealize their parents (p106). They need that reassurance that our parents did those things for our own good. And to erase their doubt, they do that to their own children.
The fear of incompetence leads some parents to give into their children`s demands (p108)
Some of my thoughts
Many Asian parents took a strategy to out-tough the situation when handling their children. Aka. when life is hard, parents have to be tougher. This is definitely what Alfie would categorize as conditional parenting. Like many Asian parents, I see this in my parents a lot and they share their hard life stories with me. I suspect conditional parenting, if applied well, could cultivate the empathy and gratitude of children from an early age and make children work harder in a collaborative perspective. This might lead to a tough time for children until they fully understand their parents in adulthood.
”I will not beat you” is an example of bad parenting practice, I gave it a laugh when I read about Alfie. My father often bragged that I don`t beat you like other parents and do what you please. He acted as I should appreciate it. I definitely did and idealized my dad back then, although now I think it is not honest and open things a parent would say. There is only one reason acceptable for I don`t beat you: I love you and there is no possibility I would beat you. Other reasons are just a bunch of rationalizations for something else.
I personally find the stats given in the book jaw-dropping: more than 1.3 million children are homeless in the USA and between 22–26% of young children are classified as poor (p96). I am also curious about how children elsewhere live in general. Aside from that, I read about a report about how children are mistreated by their parents in China. 8–12 per cent of China’s 270 million minors faced some form of sexual assault (scmp, 2019). In general, the world is a more dangerous place for children than I previously thought. Judging from the perspective of how children may evolve from this book, I wonder how many adults still carried their complications formed in an early age manifested in a variety of interactions with others.
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