Sonia Ulan

Well said Nicoletta!!! And thanks for the reminder/tips on alternatives
to spanking.


Sonia



Shannon Nicoletta Manns wrote:
>
>
> Corallyn and all,
>
> Please, please, please read Aletha Solter's work of 'Aware Parenting'. Her
> web site is www.awareparenting.com.
> Personally I cringe every time someone talks about how they think there is a
> place for spanking.
>
> Following are some samples of Aletha's work. I am sorry, if this is too long
> for some of you, but I feel so passionate about this. I just can't help
> myself; I have to get this information out there.
>
> Please don't hit children! I may be overstepping some boundaries here, but I
> happen to believe that all children are all adults' responsibility, not just
> the parents'; now more so than ever, because since the decline of villages
> and the extended family, couples are pretty much raising children in
> isolation, even if they have some sort of "village" around them. I believe
> one of the purposes for having a village for raising a child is to prevent
> abuse, such as spanking, by giving parents the option for taking a break
> when things get too intense and overwhelming.
>
> That's just me and my personal opinion. Take it or leave it.
> Nicoletta
>
> TWENTY ALTERNATIVES TO PUNISHMENT
>
> 1. LOOK FOR UNDERLYING NEEDS. ex: Give your child something to play with
> while waiting in line.
>
> 2. GIVE INFORMATION & REASONS. ex: If your child colours on the wall,
> explain why we colour on paper only.
>
> 3. LOOK FOR UNDERLYING FEELINGS. Acknowledge, accept & listen to feelings.
> ex: If your child hits his baby sister, encourage him to express his anger
> and jealousy in harmless ways.
>
> 4. CHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT. This is sometimes easier than trying to change
> the child. ex: If your child repeatedly takes things out of the kitchen
> cupboards, put a childproof lock on them.
>
> 5. FIND ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVES, and redirect your child's behaviour. ex: If
> you do not want your child to build a fort in the dining room, don't just
> say no. Tell her where she can build one.
>
> 6. DEMONSTRATE HOW YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO BEHAVE. ex. If your child pulls a
> cat's tail, show her how to pet a cat. Do not rely on words alone.
>
> 7. GIVE CHOICES RATHER THAN COMMANDS. Decision-making empowers children;
> commands invite a power struggle. ex: 'Would you like to brush your teeth
> before or after putting your pyjamas on?"
>
> 8. MAKE SMALL CONCESSIONS. ex: "I'll let you skip brushing your teeth
> tonight because you are so tired.'
>
> 9. PROVIDE FOR A PERIOD OF PREPARATION. ex: If you are counting on company
> for dinner, tell your child how you expect him to behave. Be specific.
> Role-playing can help prepare children for potentially difficult situations.
>
> 10. LET NATURAL CONSEQUENCES OCCUR (when appropriate). Don't rescue too
> much. ex: A child who does not hang up her bathing suit and towel may find
> them still wet the next day.
>
> 11. USE ACTIONS WHEN NECESSARY. If your child insists on running across
> streets on your walks together, hold his hand tightly (while explaining the
> dangers).
>
> 12. GIVE 'I-MESSAGES'. ex: "I get so tired of cleaning up crumbs in the
> living room.'
>
> 13. HOLD YOUR CHILD. This expression of love enables children who are acting
> aggressively or obnoxiously to channel their pent-up feelings into healing
> tears.
>
> 14. REMOVE YOUR CHILD FROM THE SITUATION, AND STAY WITH HER until she is
> ready to act appropriately. Use the time for listening, sharing feelings,
> and moving toward conflict- resolution.
>
> 15. BE PLAYFUL. Turn the situation into a game. ex: 'Let's pretend we're the
> seven dwarfs while we clean up.'
>
> 16. DO IT TOGETHER. ex: If your child refuses to take a bath, offer to take
> one with her.
>
> 17. MAKE A DEAL, NEGOTIATE. ex: If you're ready to leave the playground and
> your child is having fun, reach an agreement on the number of times she may
> go down the slide before leaving.
>
> 18. DEFUSE THE SITUATION WITH LAUGHTER. ex: If your child is mad at you,
> invite him to express his anger in a playful pillow fight with you. Play
> your part by surrendering dramatically. Laughter helps resolve anger and
> feelings of powerlessness.
>
> 19. REVISE YOUR EXPECTATIONS. Young children are naturally loud, curious,
> messy, wilful, impatient, demanding, forgetful, fearful, self-centred, and
> full of energy. Try to accept them as they are.
>
> 20. TAKE A PARENTAL TIME-OUT. Leave the room, and do whatever is needed to
> regain your sense of composure and good judgement (ex: cry, call a friend,
> meditate, take a shower, ad a poem).
>
> 1992 by Aletha Solter. Reprinted with permission from Modum* magazine, Vol.
> 65, 1992 (with minor changes)
>
> The Disadvantages of Time-Out
> by
> Aletha Solter, Ph.D.
> For more information about alternatives to time-out, please see Aletha
> Solter's books:The Aware Baby, Helping Young Children Flourish, and Tears
> and Tantrums
> Copyright © 1992, 2000 by Aletha Solter. No part of this article may be
> reproduced, electronically or mechanically, without written permission from
> the author. This article was originally published in Mothering magazine in
> the Fall issue of 1992. It was revised and updated in 2000.
> As concerned parents and educators have become aware of the dangers of
> physical punishment, time-out has emerged as a popular disciplinary tool.
> Misbehaving children are told to sit quietly on a chair or go to their rooms
> to calm down and think about what they did. After a period of time, they are
> allowed to come back to the group or join the family, provided that they act
> "appropriately." The designated period of time is usually one minute per
> year of age, and children who leave the chair or room before their time is
> up are told to return for the full allotment once again. Some books
> recommend an added rule of silence, and suggest that the timing be repeated
> if the silence is broken. In either case, parents who use this method are
> promised quick and easy results.
> Time-out stems from the behaviorist movement based on the work of
> psychologist B.F. Skinner. His theory of operant conditioning asserts that
> children will behave in certain ways if they receive rewards for doing so
> ("positive reinforcement"), and that undesirable behavior can be diminished
> by withholding the rewards or by invoking pain (both of which are termed
> "punishment"). Skinner himself believed that all forms of punishment were
> unsuitable means of controlling children's behavior [1]. Even so, while
> spanking is on the wane in the United States, the withholding of love and
> attention has persisted as an acceptable means of control.
> Beneath the Surface
> Using time-out appears less injurious than hitting, spanking, or yelling,
> because it does not involve physical or verbal abuse. It is therefore
> thought to represent some degree of progress in our continual striving to
> make this world a better place for children. According to many educators and
> psychologists, however, time-out is not as innocent as it seems and is,
> moreover, an emotionally harmful way to discipline children. In fact, the
> National Association for the Education of Young Children includes the use of
> time-out in a list of harmful disciplinary measures, along with physical
> punishment, criticizing, blaming, and shaming [2].
> Beneath the surface, time-out is an authoritarian approach and, as such, can
> work only among children trained to comply with the power and authority of
> adults. Children trained to conform to such measures know that the
> consequences of disobeying are worse than adhering to the injunctions.
> Children who have not been brought up in an authoritarian environment will
> most likely refuse to go to another room or sit in a chair.
> How does a child learn about the consequences of disobedience? Proponents of
> time-out advise parents to remove all privileges such as TV, toys, music,
> and so forth until compliance has been achieved. Always there is the threat
> of deprivation or further penalty. In some families there may even be an
> unspoken threat of violence. Although the method seems innocent enough, it
> requires a past history of punitive authoritarianism to produce children
> docile enough to obey.
> Proponents claim that time-out is not a form of punishment. They use terms
> such as "consequence," "renewal time," or "down time" to make the approach
> sound benign. The term "time-out" itself has pleasant connotations of a
> sports team taking a well-deserved break. Regrettably, this non-threatening
> terminology has deluded parents into thinking that the approach is harmless.
> >From a child's point of view, time-out is definitely experienced as
> punishment. Who wants to be isolated from the group and totally ignored? It
> is quite likely that children view this form of isolation as abandonment and
> loss of love. And while parents are often careful to provide reassurances of
> their love and to distinguish between the child and the unruly behavior ("I
> love you, but you need to go to your room for five minutes because what you
> did is not acceptable"), their actions speak much louder than their words.
> Children under the age of seven simply do not have the capability to process
> words in the same way that adults do [3]. Concrete experience and
> perceptions of reality impact more strongly than language. Being isolated
> and ignored is interpreted as "Nobody wants to be with me right now.
> Therefore I must be bad and unlovable," and no loving words, however well
> intended, can override this feeling of rejection.
> Nothing is more frightening for a child than the withdrawal of love. Along
> with the fear come insecurity, anxiety, confusion, anger, resentment, and
> low self-esteem. Time-out can also cause embarrassment and humiliation,
> especially when used in the presence of other children. In the child's realm
> of experience, time-out is nothing short of punitive.
> Painful feelings are one consideration; the information conveyed about human
> relationships is another. What message are we giving our children in
> demonstrating that love and attention are commodities to be doled out or
> withheld for purposes of controlling others? Is this a conflict-resolution
> skill that will be useful to them? How will it influence their ability to
> interact with friends, and some day with a spouse and coworkers? Wouldn't it
> be better to teach children useful conflict-resolution skills right from the
> start, rather than convey the message that the only way to solve conflicts
> is to cut off communication?
> Although the trouble with time-out is in large part invisible, one aspect is
> glaringly obvious: at some point it stops working. Proponents of the
> approach admit that it is effective only up until the age of about nine. Can
> you imagine telling your teenager, who may be taller than you, to sit in a
> chair while you ignore him? Teens who have any sense of their own self-worth
> will laugh at such a command. The adolescent version of time-out is the
> practice of "grounding" teenagers by not allowing them to go out on the
> weekends or in the evenings. But this method only leads to resentment,
> resistance, and sometimes even lying.
> Indeed, any method based on power and authoritarianism must eventually be
> abandoned, simply because parents run out of power [4]. Parents of teens
> face an entirely new set of difficulties when their tried-and-true methods
> of control prove utterly ineffective. Parents who adopt non-authoritarian
> methods right from the start, on the other hand, are able to prevent the
> power struggles, as well as the discipline problems, that so often come with
> adolescence.
> Hidden Consequences
> The use of time-out leads to a host of hidden problems. For one, when we
> enforce a time-out for children who are crying or raging, they get the
> message that we do not want to be around them when they are upset. Certain
> that we will not listen, they may soon stop bringing their problems to us.
> Furthermore, such children may learn to suppress their feelings, especially
> if we insist on time-out in silence. Have we forgotten that crying and
> raging are healthy tension-release mechanisms that help relieve sadness and
> frustration? [5,6,7] Have we ignored the research showing that stress
> hormones are excreted through tears, thereby possibly reducing the effects
> of stress and restoring the body's chemical balance? [8]. In teaching our
> children to suppress their tears, we may actually be increasing their
> susceptibility to a variety of emotional and physical imbalances. Swiss
> psychotherapist Dr. Alice Miller states that one of the most devastating
> things we do to children is deny them the freedom to express their anger and
> suffering [9].
> An additional problem is that the use of time-out does not address the
> underlying cause of the "inappropriate behavior." Children act in specific
> ways for good reasons, even though the youngsters themselves may not be
> aware of them. Most undesirable behavior can be explained by one of three
> factors: the child is attempting to fulfill a legitimate need, the child
> lacks information or is too young to understand, or the child is feeling
> upset (frustrated, sad, scared, confused, jealous, or insecure) [10]. When
> we try to change a behavior without addressing these feelings and needs, we
> do not help our children very much at all. Why? Because the underlying
> problem will still be there. Teaching children to conform to our wishes does
> not resolve the deeper issues.
> For example, siblings who are repeatedly separated and sent to their rooms
> when they fight may eventually learn to stop fighting in front of their
> parents. Their unresolved feelings of jealousy and hatred, however, may come
> to expression in more devious ways, or they may carry their resentments into
> adulthood. Curtailing the symptoms of a problem does not solve the problem.
> Parents have been led to believe that children will use time-out to think
> about what they did and regain some modicum of self-control. In reality,
> when children act in inappropriate, aggressive, or obnoxious ways, they are
> often harboring such strong pent-up feelings that they are unable to think
> clearly about their actions. Far more helpful than isolation is an attentive
> listener who can encourage the expression of honest feelings. The healthy
> release provided by talking, crying, or raging may even prevent the
> recurrence of unwanted behavior.
> Holding children who hit or bite is much more effective than isolating them.
> Firm but loving holding creates safety and warmth while protecting other
> children from getting hurt. It also invites the expression of genuine
> feelings (through crying and raging) while reassuring the child of the
> indestructible parent-child bond. [10]. It is paradoxical, yet true:
> children are most in need of loving attention when they act least deserving
> of it. Telling a violent child to sit quietly rarely accomplishes anything
> constructive and only further contributes to the child's pent-up anger and
> feelings of alienation.
> It is not necessary to isolate children and withdraw our love to teach them
> how to "behave". In fact, it is entirely possible to help children learn to
> be cooperative and decent members of society without ever issuing
> punishments, rewards, or artificial consequences of any kind. No quick and
> easy method will solve every conflict. Instead, we need to treat each
> situation as the unique challenge that it is, and try to be flexible and
> creative, all the while giving our children the love and respect they
> deserve.
> Notes
> 1. Robert D. Nye, "B.F. Skinner and Radical Behaviorism," Three Views of Man
> (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1975), p. 51
> 2. "Avoiding 'Me Against You' Discipline," Young Children, Vol. 44, No. 1.
> (Washington DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children,
> November 1988), p. 27.
> 3. Jerome S. Bruner, "The Course of Cognitive Growth," American Psychologist
> 19 (1964), pp. 1-15.
> 4. Thomas Gordon, Parent Effectiveness Training (New American Library,
> 1975), pp. 170-171.
> 5. Aletha J. Solter, The Aware Baby (Goleta, CA: Shining Star Press, 1984),
> pp. 40-41.
> 6. Aletha J. Solter, Helping Young Children Flourish (Goleta, CA: Shining
> Star Press, 1989), pp. 5-9.
> 7. Aletha J. Solter, Tears and Tantrums (Goleta, CA: Shining Star Press,
> 1998), pp. 13-32.
> 8. William H. Frey II, & Muriel Langseth, Crying: the Mystery of Tears
> (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985), pp. 45-58.
> 9. Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the
> Roots of Violence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux), pp. 106, 259.
> 10. Martha G. Welch, Holding Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1988),
> pp. 42-43
>
> PRINCIPLES OF AWARE PARENTING
> by Aletha Solter, Ph.D.
>
> 1. Aware parents fill their children's needs for physical contact (holding,
> cuddling, etc.). They do not worry about "spoiling' their children.
>
> 2. Aware parents accept the entire range of emotions and listen
> non-judgmentally to children's expressions of feelings. They realize that
> they cannot prevent all sadness, anger, or frustration, and they do not
> attempt to stop children from releasing painful feelings through crying or
> raging.
>
> 3. Aware parents offer age-appropriate stimulation, and trust children to
> learn at their own rate and in their own way. They do not try to hurry
> children on to new stages of development.
>
> 4. Aware parents offer encouragement for learning new skills, but do not
> judge children's performance with either criticism or evaluative praise.
>
> 5. Aware parents spend time each day giving full attention to their
> children. During this special, quality time, they observe, listen, respond,
> and join in their children's play (if invited to do so), but they do not
> direct the children's activities.
>
> 6. Aware parents protect children from danger, but they do not attempt to
> prevent all of their children's mistakes, problems, or conflicts.
>
> 7. Aware parents encourage children to be autonomous problem-solvers and
> help only when needed. They do not solve their children's problems for them.
>
> 8. Aware parents set reasonable boundaries and limits, gently guide children
> towards acceptable behavior, and consider everyone's needs when solving
> conflicts. They do not control children with bribes, rewards, threats, or
> punishments of any kind.
>
> 9. Aware parents take care of themselves and are honest about their own
> needs and feelings. They do not sacrifice themselves to the point of
> becoming resentful.
>
> 10. Aware parents strive to be aware of the ways in which their own
> childhood pain interferes with their ability to be good parents, and they
> make conscious efforts to avoid passing on their own hurts to their
> children.
>
> This philosophy is further developed in Aletha Solter's books, The Aware
> Baby, Helping Young Children Flourish, and Tears and Tantrums (available
> from Shining Star Press, P.O. Box 206, Goleta, CA 93116, U.S.A.). Copyright
> 0 1994 by Aletha Solter
>
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