I'd like to ask you first of all describe what you mean by conditional versus unconditional parenting.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Children don't just need to be loved or even loved a lot. They need to be loved unconditionally, which means without any strings attached, they, and we for that matter, need to be loved and cared for on the basis of who we are, not what we do. So that even when children screw up or fall short, they need to know that our love for them is never in doubt. Unfortunately, the vast majority of resources for parents urge us to do exactly the opposite.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_03To use our approval as a kind of lever to manipulate them by offering praise, which is a kind of verbal reward, when they please us, and to withhold or deny them that approval and care when they don't. And that's what leads to a number of problems.
SPEAKER_04What are some of the assumptions you think people have then about unconditional parenting? Because I think that it often leads to uh a uh a way of thinking that's not actually accurate, like a permissive sort of idea.
SPEAKER_03Right. Well, I'm not sure people have a specific set of beliefs or misconceptions about unconditional parenting, because I suspect most aren't even familiar with the concept and haven't been invited to think of conditionality or contingency as a feature of their love for the ch for their children. But I do think that you're on to something in suggesting that many people have been led to uh believe that the alternative to controlling children, to uh an approach I call uh a sort of doing to parenting, to make them uh comply with whatever our demands are, whether they're reasonable or not, that the only alternative to that uh is some kind of permissiveness, hands off, laissez-faire, let the kids do what they want. And that's not the case at all. That's a false dichotomy. The alternative to doing to parenting, which typically involves some combination of bribes and threats, is what I call working with parenting, uh, which is very different from doing nothing or letting kids do uh anything they choose. And it means solving problems together, bringing kids in on making decisions in a way that's um appropriate for their for their developmental position. Um and in general treating them with respect. And that's that's much harder to do than offering a goodie when they jump through our hoops or making them suffer uh when they displease us. And by the way, uh making them suffer uh does not become any more appropriate or or um uh uh useful, productive, just because we use a euphemism to describe it, like calling it c imposing a consequence. And similarly, bribing them to um to obey us doesn't become any more constructive because we call it positive reinforcement. Those are just terms that help us feel better about controlling children in a way that isn't really beneficial. And in in in my book, um rather than start from the premise that whatever the parent wants is automatically legitimate, so here are some tricks and techniques for making kids do it. Uh I I urge that we ask ourselves more uncomfortable questions. Yeah. You know, like a a lot of times when kids don't do what we want them to do, the problem is not with the kid, it's with what we want them to do. Yes. And so we have to have the courage to begin by questioning our own requests, whether it's really necessary, whether it's really in their interest or just for their convenience for our convenience, and so on.
SPEAKER_04And it is hard, it's it's definitely hard because that's the model that we've got. It's horrible at the whole form of punishment to make that children. And that's really hard.
SPEAKER_03It's not because we're being sadistic. No. It's it's it's that uh it's because it's expected of us, because it asks less of us, um, because it was done to us, perhaps, and thus it would become very uncomfortable, unsettling for us to question whether the way we were raised was was really optimal. A lot of times we just channel the stuff that was done to us unthinkingly. I call it how did my mom get in my larynx? You know, we open we open our mouths and the same exact expressions and the same tone of voice come out. And when people say, Well, you know, I was just raised to believe as if that ends the discussion rather than that should begin the discussion. We're we're capable of of reason, of reflection, and of saying of of the things that were done to us, which are really so beneficial um that we want to continue them in the next generation, and which should be left behind. And so let's so let's take punishment for example. A punishment means um I I say to kids, do this, or here's the bad thing I'm gonna do to you. And um what the kid comes to ask is, what do they want me to do, these people who have more power than I do, and what happens to me if I don't do it? So the only thing you can ever get with any kind of punitive consequence, all the way from physically striking a kid to taking away privileges to screaming at him to forcing them into isolation when they need us most, which is euphemistically called time out. The only thing any of those punishments can or any punishment can ever elicit is temporary compliance at an enormous cost. One of the costs is that um kids tend to be filled with rage um and fury uh at this, with n and nothing to do with that. Um and another implication or cost of it is that kids figure out how to avoid having the punishment. If you say to kids, hey, don't let me catch you doing that again, they'll think, okay, next time you won't catch me.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_03No, no consequence ever in history helped a child to become a more ethical, thoughtful person.
SPEAKER_04No, I know for me it was always about fear. Just I was just always in fear.
SPEAKER_03Of course. It's about fear, it it uh ruptures the relationship between the child and and the adult who's doing this or threatening to do this to them. Because now you're not a seen by them as a caring ally, you're seen by them as an enforcer to be avoided.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But most of all, what punishment does, what it teaches kids, is um that it's all about power and self-interest. The kid asks, What do what do I have to do to avoid this bad thing happening to me? So if a kid hits another kid or says something really nasty to another kid, and you punish that child in some way, the child becomes even less likely to be thinking about the impact of his or her actions on other people. You have just made that child more self-centered, more focused on what's the impact to me. Um, and you know, I think what we really want, what I find parents want when I ask, what are your long-term goals for your children? Is yes, to be to be happy, to be self-sufficient, but to be caring and compassionate, to be a decent person. Punishment gets in the way of that kind of moral and intellectual development by saying, Here's here's the impact on you.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03You know, that's that's what consequence means by definition, when you think about it. The consequence to the kid, yeah, not to the people, other people in their lives. So it's not a matter of tweaking the consequences, find doing it on a different schedule or choosing a different way to make kids suffer.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's about you can't ever promote something constructive if there's any kind of punitive consequence hanging in the balance. And some parents talk with kids in a way that I think is really constructive and loving and useful, but if there's some kind of threat involved, do this or here's what I'm gonna do to you, you are taking away with one hand what you're giving with the other. You're undermining the potential benefit of the working with intervention when you impose a doing to intervention.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, I think that that's really powerful to think of it like that. Um the consider the the thing that's a delightful moment for me then is that a lot of people then would switch the other way to rewards. But after reading your book, before I switched, um Your argument is that rewards are just as hard and that we should be rethinking that practice as well. Can you talk to me about the impact that rewards can have on anybody, but specifically children?
SPEAKER_03Sure. So a reward, instead of saying do this or here's what I'm gonna do to you, is a way of saying do this and you'll get that. And what the child hears is the question the child comes to formulate is what do they want me to do, these people with the power, and what do I get for doing it? This is not an alternative to punishment. This is just the flip side, another way of doing things to kids. And the and and here I'm not just you know talking about stuff I thought up in the shower this morning. This there's decades of research to support the detrimental, in indeed counterproductive effects of both any kind of punishment or any kind of reward, including a verbal doggy biscuit that we offer to kids as an good job, good on you. I really like the way you you know, this is this is just to get it away of manipulating kids into mindlessly obeying authority. In this case, it happens to be you, so of course you think it's benign authority, but the effect on kids is almost exactly the same as punishing them. You know, because first of all, you can get one thing temporary compliance, if the reward is big enough, juicy enough, appealing enough, at a huge cost. What you can never get from any kind of reward, a sticker, a gold star, a candy bar, a good mark in school, uh, a dollar, or praise, what you can never get from any of those things is helping to promote his intellectual or moral or social development. Indeed, you're getting in the way of that development because, among other things, just with as like as with punishment, kids come to become more self-centered. If you see your child doing something nice or generous, say sharing a dessert with another child, and then you marinate the kid in praise. Oh, you're so generous. Good for you. I I really like the way you just shared your dessert. I'm so proud of you. That child just became a little more selfish. What you've taught the child is the reason to do nice things is not to help other people and make them feel better. It's you'll get a patronizing pat on the head if the powerful person catches you doing it. And so you're a little more dependent on powerful people to approve of what you do, a little less autonomous, and a little less committed to whatever the action was that led to that result. And it's not just true of generosity. If you praise children or give them a prize for writing a good poem or drawing a nice picture, you know, or or creating good computer code or something, you have devalued all those activities because they are now reframed in the child's mind as just a means to an end. Something not intrinsically good, but something they have to do uh in order to elicit whatever the doggy biscuit is, whether it's praise or a prize or or whatever. So reward, including verbal rewards, just like punishments, including things like time out, all fall under the rubric of of methods of control that aren't just ineffective, especially in the long run, but are counterproductive, meaning they actually do harm. And there's loads of studies that uh I review both in the book you mentioned and in an earlier book I wrote called Punished by Reward, showing that kids who have gotten a lot of praise from their parents are actually less generous than their peers. And if you take a bunch of kids and you divide them in half, and half of them are just asked to draw a picture, and the other half are told, you know, here's the reward you'll get for doing a picture, or worse, for doing a good picture, those kids, A, become less excited about drawing, the kids who are rewarded, and B don't draw as well as the kids who got no reward for doing it. Rewards actually undermine excellence at the same time that they undermine the desire to do it and get in the way of the relationship between the reward giver and the reward recipient.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, and you talk a little about damaging um the interest that that um children will have in a task, especially if they're already enjoying it. Can you explain that one a little bit more?
SPEAKER_03Well, it's just common sense that if the if the interest level is higher, it has farther to fall when something that kills interest, like a reward, uh, interferes. Um so it's but even with tasks that are of less interest, you know, kids don't want to help out with the cleaning, for example, the the chores around the house, that's not very exciting. But that doesn't mean that we're entitled to or that it'll be valuable to bribe them for that. It's it's more obvious when kids like doing something, and then you give them a prize or you reward them or you praise them for it, and now the next time they don't want to do it unless there's a reward. You can actually watch the interest decline before your eyes. But that doesn't mean we're entitled to um reward kids for low interest tests. We have to instead work with kids to figure out first whether it's really so valuable to do it and who it benefits, uh, and then to give kids more say about about how to um how to get it done. You know, uh kids learn to make good decisions by making decisions, not by not by following directions. And so the problem with a lot of reward and punishment-based systems at home or at school is not just with the method, which is A, counterproductive, and b just disrespectful as a way to treat people of any age, it's also that the goals are usually problematic. Um, you know, there are this there's this terrible system I know is in some Australian schools, as it is in some American schools, called called positive behavior support or something like that. And these these systems are not just manipulative and counterproductive. The problem with them is the objective, not just the method. Because these systems, classroom school-wide discipline or classroom management programs and many parenting approaches, if you look at it very carefully, the goal is not to help kids become caring, generous people who are independent thinkers and members of a caring community. The goal is to get them to comply with authority. The goal is to get them to do what they're told. And that's why when I speak to parents, I almost always begin, or teachers, I begin the seminar by asking, what are your long-term goals for your kids? How would you like them to turn out years from now? Think of a word or a phrase at the top of your list of how you hope your children will will turn out to be. And everywhere I go, which includes when I did this a few years ago at several cities in Australia, as well as throughout North America and other countries, I get the same kind of answers everywhere I go. I I and I I mentioned a few of those typical responses a a few minutes ago. You know, I want my child or my children, or in the case of teachers, my students, to be happy, ethical, caring, productive, critical thinkers, curious, lifelong learners, you know, decent people. Everybody says something like that, and so my What I do for a living in my books and my presentations is basically to say, You say you want this, so why are you doing that? Because here's the research showing, for example, and I do it with other stuff too, especially around educational practices, but for the purpose of our conversation, we can limit it as follows. Here's the research showing that any version of rewards or punishments with kids actively interferes with the realization of your goals for your children. It doesn't matter if I don't like them. So you have to choose. Either you keep saying, get job, and giving your child a sticker, you know, as if you're training a puppy rather than raising a human being. Or you keep forcibly isolating a child when he displeases you or take away a privilege or yell at him. Either you keep doing that stuff, or you make it more likely that you raise a child who is caring, productive, curious, happy, moral, and so on. It it's really hard to have it both ways.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it is. Uh I think the the when I think about praise, I think about the fact that like it's it just comes out of your mouth without you even thinking. And I I'm obviously super aware of it now, and even even then it comes out. And I have some really good strategies now to try and backtrack. Um because you know, I'm I'm trying to we're we're all trying to do that that a little bit better. Um but what I feel like is for a little period of time I was a little bit frozen. Like what do I like I if I'm not saying nice things to them, what what do I say? So um it when you say no praise, it's not like don't say anything to children. Do you have some ideas for people as to what that looks like?
SPEAKER_03I do. I have a couple of sort of concrete suggestions, although I I like to spend most people are just looking for that. Tell me what to say instead, give me the script. But I I think most of our time needs to go into thinking about the bigger issues of what's involved rather than saying different words, thinking about what it means more broadly to move to a working with approach to parenting. But specifically with respect to praise, I think there are basically three alternatives. One is to say nothing. A lot of the times when we praise children, it's more because we feel the need to say it than because they really need to hear it. And whenever that's true, boy, is it time to rethink our practice? Um, we we can sometimes just watch and let kids know we're there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Secondly, sometime when we want to say something, we can simply describe what we saw. Praise is not about encouragement. Praise is about judgment.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03And the fact that it's a positive judgment isn't all that important. It's what they hear is a judgment. And again, the research confirms this: that being judged positively or negatively tends to interfere with both interest and achievement in the future, to say nothing of the damage it does to the relationship, uh where some kids will kind of rebel against being judged all the time and kind of it seems to us paradoxically resist getting our pat on the head. And other kids, depending on their personality, will be hungry for it. Did you like this, mommy? Was this good? And and they the the more desperate or the more we praise them, the more desperate they become for more approval. Um, and in a way that kind of makes us feel good because we have this powerful position of being able to hand out the evaluation, but it's not doing the kid any favor. So sometimes you can just say, Here's what I noticed. You know, I noticed that when you wrote that story, you started with a bunch of very short sentences, you know, or um when you you're drawing this picture, I see there are toes on this animal. You weren't drawing toes before. Or you know, wow, you you you gave up some of the brownie you liked most for for Diane. And then that leads sometimes, not always, but sometimes to the third possible response, which is to ask questions. And I don't mean questions where there's one right answer you're fishing for, I mean questions where you uh honestly don't know the answer and you're helping and the kid might not either and have to reflect like what made you decide to give her half your brownie because you liked them so much? Or how did you figure out how to draw toes on the bear? That pulls the kid into the drawing or the giving. Whereas praise pulls them out of the action itself and gets them focused on our reaction. So those are three quick alternatives to praise, but if you're not sort of bought in to the need to stop you know treating kids like pets, if you're not willing to give up some control and be focused on longer-term goals like ethical development instead of short-term goals like compliance, if you're not willing to question the way you were raised and taught, then just like having a little cheat card where you say, Oh, right, I'm not supposed to praise, I'm supposed to ask a question, that's not gonna stick. Nice like a yeah, that that graft isn't gonna take unless you really do some serious reflection, hopefully with others, perhaps with a co-parent or friend, um, about what the long-term goals are, you know, how things seem from the child's point of view, you know, like what it how manipulative it feels, even when they smile and light up when you praise them, what's going on underneath the surface. And that's by the way, that's an important point in its own right. I have this rule of thumb that the value of any parenting resource, like a book or an article or a blog or a podcast, the value of the resource is inversely related to the number of times it contains the word behavior.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was.
SPEAKER_03Whenever people are talking talking about kids' behavior, you know that it's only on the surface stuff that can be seen and measured, not about the kid's values and motives and reasons, and and not about the child herself, you know, who engages in the behavior. And whenever people keep talking about kids' behavior, you know, you know the point is going to be to try to make the behavior change, and here come rewards or punishments or some variant of those down the pike. So you that's a good indication of whether you're looking at a at a working with or a doing-to resource, the extent to which it's preoccupied with behaviors, or whether it's really about engaging with these with these children.
SPEAKER_04Such valuable advice. I I can only say that um, you know, your books have been such a a lighthouse for me, and I haven't read all of them, and I've just realized that there are buttons there that I think will go right up my alley, and I'm really going to be suggesting for our listeners to delve more into learning more about this so that you've got that really thorough theoretical understanding, so that you've got that connection in mind with your children. Thank you so much for giving up your time today to talk to me. I I think that what you have to say is so incredibly valuable to our community. So I really, really appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, my pleasure. I appreciate your interest in it, and I hope that any listeners who may want to know more will have a look at um my website, which contains, by the way, in addition to information about my books and a couple of uh videos, also has loads of articles about lots of topics in education and parenting and human behavior. And uh that website is just my name, Alfie Cone, K-O-H-N.org.
SPEAKER_04That's fantastic. Alfie, I'm honestly your work is just life-changing, and I know that my children's lives have um been improved by the the the wisdom that you've passed on. So thank you so much for that.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_04I appreciate your saying that's well I only had a very short period of time to bring you all of Alfie's amazing ideas on how we raise our children. I'm very, very grateful for that time. If you'd like to learn more about it, it can be really difficult to get more.