When we disagreed, we would often toss out to each other a reminder “I love you ” as if the unspoken part was, “despite our disagreement or your poophead move just now”. I started by verbally telling my kids all the time that I loved them no matter what. When I finally realized that my children deeply feared me, I knew I had to change the way I parented. I became more aware that I was raging rather than disciplining. However, something about it seemed off, even as I justified my punitive approach to correcting their behaviours. 90% of my communications with them was to criticize them so that they could improve. When my kids were very little, I parented them that way: withholding approval until my kids behaved the way I wanted them to. So many of us have grown up with the stick and the carrot as deterrents against and incentives for behaviour, so this can seem like a rational way to treat our children. The subtitle explains the book quite clearly: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.
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