If you're praising your children, you're doing it wrong, says our guest on today's episode. Perhaps I've misinterpreted the message of our guest, Judy Arnall, who we recently heard on the show discussing her philosophy on unschooling.

But while we were discussing unschooling, I learned that Judy has written not THE book on parenting, but she's written a book on parenting. And it's a very good book. It's titled Discipline Without Distress, 135 Tools for Raising Caring Responsible Children Without Timeout, Spanking, Punishment, or Bribery .

It can be found at any major book retailer in physical or digital format, and I was fortunate enough to be able to have Judy again join me on a call and discuss some of the nuances of parenting, and why we should view ourselves more as tour guides to the yung'ins than disciplinarians.

Maybe unparenting is a more succinct way to put it.

In this episode, Judy discusses her unique approach to parenting. She emphasizes the importance of discipline over punishment, shares insights on avoiding praise addiction, and highlights the significance of fostering open communication and problem-solving skills in children.

Judy also articulates the benefits of non-punitive methods, proactive discipline, family meetings, and voluntary timeouts to build stronger, lifelong relationships with kids.

The conversation includes real-life examples and addresses parents' concerns about navigating a punitive society while encouraging a more empathetic and constructive parenting style.

In this interview with Judy Arnall, you'll discover:

02:09 Judy's Parenting Philosophy

04:16 Personal Parenting Experiences and Reflections

08:06 Why "punishment" as we understand it is ineffective

12:31 Encouragement vs. Praise

18:13 Understanding Discipline Over Punishment

24:01 Navigating Screen Time Boundaries

25:25 Collaborative Problem Solving

27:46 Realistic Expectations and Follow-Through

30:50 The Role of Rewards and Appreciation

35:57 Non-Punitive Parenting in a Punitive Society

39:22 Building Lifelong Relationships

41:27 Unique Parenting Tools

43:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Resources mentioned:

Discipline Without Distress, 135 Tools for Raising Caring Responsible Children Without Timeout, Spanking, Punishment, or Bribery by Judy Arnall

Judy's website

About the guest:

I will admit it. I’m a bit of a control freak. Actually, I need a lot of control, because I am “Type-A”, “Judgement,” “Gold color” or whatever those personality tests use to describe me. I need people to do things when I ask them to do it and I feel frustrated when they don’t listen to me. It’s often hard for me to remember that my partner and children are not trying to drive me crazy when they don’t listen to what I ask of them. It’s simply that my needs are just not on their radar for that moment.

Like many others who grew up in the 70’s, my parents used bribery and punishment to control their children. In spite of changing societal views on spanking, they did what their parents did and hung a wooden board in the kitchen called “The Board of Education.” We were regularly spanked as small children and as we got older, we were given “lines to write” in a type of home detention. We were also grounded, and had important outings and possessions taken away from us. I still remember the Halloween that I was grounded and watched my siblings eating their stash, while I had none.

Punishment kept some of us in line, like me, but with the lifelong effect of being afraid of my parents. They were the last people on earth I would come to with a problem, or to share my feelings with. I could never relax or have fun with them, because they had an authority fueled by my anger and fear. Punishment also served to egg on the more spirited children I knew, such as my brother. The challenge for him was to keep on doing what he wanted and just not get caught. It became a game. He had no fear of my parents, but he didn’t respect them either. He just didn’t care what they thought. No punishment was severe enough to deter his drive and persistence. My parents’ goal was to raise obedient children, not to build relationships, and they halfway succeeded.

In the 70’s, the trend of spanking was decreasing. Physical punishment was considered not very “positive” in parenting. Parents became widely permissive until the 1980’s when the pendulum swung back again. The move from authoritarian parenting to authoritative parenting really took hold in that decade with a plethora of parenting programs that told parents physical punishments were bad, but emotional and social punishments were “positive discipline.” 75% of parents spanked, and the non-spanking parents felt they really needed to do something when they were angry, so the concept of time-out, or jail-time, became immensely popular as the discipline tool of choice for young children. For older children, the biggest form of punishment was taking away privacy, telephone privileges and grounding all issued under the guise of “logical consequences.” Today, 85% of parents punish their children emotionally while only 65% use physical punishments. And we wonder why teens dismiss their parents in the last years of childhood? The simple answer is because they can. They can withhold emotional and social involvement.

We don’t pick one style of parenting and stay there. We move toward our parenting goal in meandering ways. In the 90’s I had three children under the age of four, and like many parents, felt anger when they wouldn’t listen to me. My parenting goal was to build strong relationships with my children. I vowed never to spank, and only did once (as I confessed in my first book, Discipline Without Distress.) My four year-old son, looked me in the eye, and said with his saddest voice, “Mommy, you tell us that hitting hurts people. You hurt me.” I never used physical punishment ever again.

However, I did do the jail time-outs and logical consequences. Sticking a child in a room and telling them to “think about what they did,” served one purpose – to give me enough space to calm down. This worked well with my two older boys, but then the spirited firecracker of a daughter came along and kicked, screamed and wrecked her room when I put her in time-out. I realized that time-out, as a “calming tool” was not really fun for her or me. I was tired of holding the door closed and her throwing things at it from the other side while no one was calming down. I still believed in “authoritative” parenting, and still considered parents the supreme rulers of the family that would allow input from the children, but parents still made all the rules. However, children have a way of challenging your assumptions and changing your parenting! I gave up the time-outs.

When my children were ten, nine, seven, four, and one, I did it. I gave up the last piece of punishment that I was holding on to from my authoritative parenting view: “logical consequences.” Again, out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom. When I issued a consequence, my nine year-old son said to me, “No, I’m not choosing this consequence! You are imposing it on me!” After much thought, I concluded he was correct. I already had decided the outcome to the situation and it was painful, in order to teach him a lesson. He would have chosen to fix the situation differently, had I let him. When I issued consequences that were “related”, “reasonable” (or so I had thought) and “respectful,” (but it wasn’t respectful enough, that I would do it to my partner, or friend, or neighbor), he decided that it was definitely a punishment and stopped talking to me. I decided to never again use logical consequences on my loved ones. I didn’t take away cell phones, video games, bedroom doors, or car privileges.

In retrospect, I realized parents can’t give up some bad habits without filling the space with good habits. To tell parents not to do something, you have to give them something to do instead. Managing parental anger and stress was the biggest challenge of non-punitive parenting. At the same time that I let go of authoritative parenting, I took a Train-the-Trainer course and practiced the three “must have” relationship communication skills. I became very practiced in 1)acknowledging people’s feelings, 2)asserting my needs through I-statements, and 3)managing conflicts with win-win collaborative problem-solving. Every person needs these skills for every relationship that they value. Married couples do it. Bosses and subordinates do it. Neighbors who want to stay amicable do it. Why not parents and their children? Parents don’t have to choose between the three traditional parenting styles titled authoritarian, authoritative and permissive. More and more, I believed that parents can be a fourth style: collaborative. Problem-solving can replace punishment. After teaching years of classes, I’ve seen parents change over time in accordance with their goal of building a lifelong relationship.

Current research indicates that children need nurturing and structure. They don’t need punishment. Many “positive” discipline programs and books still incorporate emotional punishment such as jail time-outs, logical consequences, and taking away possessions. For children, there is nothing positive about them. If these techniques are things you wouldn’t do to your partner, why would you do them to y...