Expert: Instead of Timeouts, Just Say ‘Yes’
Alfie Kohn thinks you shouldn’t punish your kids. He also thinks you shouldn’t reward them. By doing so, you’re teaching them that you love them only when they behave and demonstrate new skills. So, no timeouts and, also, no gold stars.
But kids, right? They can’t be trusted to raise themselves. So why is this Kohn guy trying to get parents to be so permissive, to let them run around wild and turn into narcississtic, rule-ignoring embarrassments who won’t show up to work on time … if at all?
Kohn, responding to the criticism of his New York Times piece in which he said kids interpret timeouts as conditional love, explains in the Times blog Motherlode what parents can do to teach their kids the ways of the world without using timeouts or praise. Continue reading »
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Tags: Alfie Kohn, child-rearing, discipline, Lisa Belkin, Madeline Holler, motherlode, New York Times, no punishments no rewards, Unconditional Parenting
This Mom Gets It: Her Kid Isn’t the One Who Needs Help
Jody Becker, a writer and mother of two children, is one of the lucky ones. Because they can afford to live where they do, in a wealthy area of Orange County, Calif., her kids get to attend a top-notch public school, basically for free. Sure, even the so-called “blue ribbon” schools have been hit with cutbacks and, yes, even these schools rely on an outside revenue stream to educate the kids.
Because she doesn’t want her kid to be a free-rider, she’ll write the check. But that’s it. She says she won’t be volunteering as class mom.
However! Continue reading »
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Tags: grade disparity, income disparity, Jody Becker, Lisa Belkin, Madeline Holler, motherlode, public schools
Bonding With Baby, Perhaps a Little Too Soon
Finding out the sex of your baby — as Jeanne recently pointed out in this post — can be a dicey proposition, for many reasons. But one key one? The sense of attachment we sometimes develop to our kids, even when they’re still in utero.
A reader to the New York Times Motherlode blog, Amanda Goehring, wrote a thoughtful letter to blogger Lisa Belkin about the bond she formed with her unborn daughter. Or rather, the daughter she thought she was having. Times blogger Belkin shared Goehring’s response in its entirety, in which she talks about her despair once she realized — courtesy of an ultrasound a few weeks before her due date — that the little girl named Lucille she believed to be growing inside her was actually a boy.
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Tags: Amanda Goehring, expectations for children, gender, in utero, Jen Chaney, Lisa Belkin, motherlode, New York Times, pregnancy, pregnant
Dads: The New Moms
Move over, women, there’s a new mom in town. He may go by the name “Dad,” but really? He’s Mommy.
Men parents have been encroaching on mom’s turf for some time now, but this year it seems to have reached a critical mass.
Let’s start with the research. Dad gains weight and experiences mood swings during pregnancy just like his pregnant wife — the original mom. Studies also show that Dad doesn’t value himself as a parent, which is such a self-deprecating and motherly thing to do. Continue reading »
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Tags: BBC, breastfeeding, Father's Day, father's day 2009, gender roles, humor, Lisa Belkin, Madeline Holler, motherlode, ny times, opting out, parenting, salon, stay-at-home fathers, stay-at-home moms, stay-at-home parents, thomas beattie, today show
