I’ve been trying to read up a bit not just on newborn/infant care but on parenting in general. This book was suggested to me by a friend at work, who I will refer to as Q., because that is not his first initial. Q. related the following exchange:

Q. is reading Unconditional Parenting in bed
Q’s son: Daddy, why are you reading that book?
Q.: Well, because I want to be a better dad.
Q’s son: But you’re already a good dad! *hug*

The author’s basic assertion is that “conditional parenting”–that is, using behavioral controls such as rewards and punishments–is a poor way to raise a child, for many reasons. Among them–and keep in mind that nearly all of these have at least one study supporting them:

• Children who are punished may temporarily cease the offending behavior, but only to avoid the punishment, not because they understand or have internalized the problem with their behavior.
• Children who are rewarded learn to stop doing things for their intrinsic reward and begin doing them only if they receieve an extrinsic reward.
• Animals are trained to obey with conditional rewards and punishments. It is disrespectful to train children like animals when we can train them like people. 
• Most parents want to raise adults who are intellectually curious, kind, and want to make a difference in the world. Rewards and punishments designed to produce perfectly obedient children may be effective in the short term but they are not effective in the long term and do not help children develop into the kind of people we want them to be.
• Rewards and punishments teach children that a parents’ love is conditional on the parent’s judgment of the child.
• Children need unconditional love more than anything. The lavish praise heaped on children by modern parents is often a stream of conditional judgments, even though they are positive ones.
• Children learn to make decisions best by making decisions, not by having decisions imposed on them.
• Children who are respected and made part of the decision-making process feel less need to assert their independence and are therefore more likely to obey.

Since we haven’t actually had any parenting experience of our own, we’re not really qualified to review the philosophy presented in the book. However, I found the author’s viewpoint unnecessarily dichotomous.

On the one hand, the author’s motives are pure. He wants to place the relationship above the rules, the long-term goals above the short-term behavior, and love over everything.

However, I don’t think it’s impossible to use rewards and punishments–albeit sparingly–in a way that still communicates unconditional love and still communicates the reason behind the rules. When I was growing up, my parents had plenty of behavioral controls, but I never felt that their love was conditional. I’m sure that taking the easy way out and making a power play is a constant temptation, but that isn’t a problem unique to a reward-and-punishment approach. 

Finally, while the author spends a vast portion of the book demonizing conditional controls, he has relatively little to say on how one might go about raising a child without them.

Do any of you parents out there have thoughts on the matter?