The Disciple Debate

by Phil Stott

There's something of a debate developing among two of the more venerable news sources in this country over the issue of using time outs to punish a child-and it has the potential to get very confusing for parents.

Specifically, The New York Times published a piece a little while back suggesting that "conditional parenting"-holding back affection when a child misbehaves, or lavishing praise when they do something right-could lead to children feeling like they have to please their parents at every turn, and result in them growing into bitter and insecure adults. Then, this week, a blogger at Newsweek fired back, claiming that Times writer Alfie Kohn "overstated the science he had to support his argument," and suggested that an equally compelling case could be made to support conditional parenting.

See what I mean about confusing?

As someone who has been using a form of conditional parenting (time outs) since my daughter was old enough to understand the concept, my initial reaction on reading the Times piece was to knock up a few hundred words about how guilty I felt and throw it on Savvy Daddy as a conversation starter. A couple of things stopped me, though. First, upon re-reading the article, I realized that Kohn hadn't suggested any kind of an alternative, which meant that he was essentially asking parents like me to throw out the one effective disciplinary tool we have and to replace it with...nothing. And, second, the way the piece was presented reminded me of so many of those articles that find their way into the media only to be instantly contradicted by yet another "scientific study". (See the red wine is/isn't good for you debate for an example)

The third thing that put me off is that my parents essentially did the same thing to my four siblings and me when we were growing up, and yet none of us harbor any kind of resentment towards them. The reason? Because they made it very clear-and often-that they loved us. So when we were punished, we realized they weren't "withholding affection"-they were mad because we'd let them down. That's a crucial difference.

To me, the concept of "unconditional acceptance" is nonsense in the first place-even with your own child. Everyone has limits as to what they consider acceptable behavior to be, and if you make those explicit only to have them breached, you're perfectly entitled to express dissatisfaction or not display affection. The flip side-saying you'll accept someone (and their behavior) without precondition-only serves to legitimize every thing they choose to do, and leaves you with no leverage for attempting to adjust that behavior. And where does one draw the line? When my child hits me? Does explaining that I don't like to be hit, or that it hurts me, cross the line into withdrawal of affection?

Perhaps the most instructive thing in either of the two articles comes at the end of the Newsweek blog, where the writer describes an experiment where a researcher measured Chinese and American kids' scores on a test and-regardless of the child's performance-told each of the kids' moms that their child had done poorly. By and large, the Chinese moms lectured their children (lovingly) and stressed the importance of improving, while the American moms-likely browbeaten by years of being told not to discipline too harshly-talked to their kids about trivial stuff like what to have for dinner, or how their day had been. The results on re-test: "the Chinese kids improved at twice the rate of the Americans." The moral: children need to know when they've done wrong, or performed poorly because they haven't tried hard enough. Without that, how can they develop a sense of right and wrong, or a work ethic? And without those, how do we expect them to function as adults?

All things considered, I'll take the short-term pain of having my children dislike me in the moment as long as I feel that it's working towards the long-term goal of turning out well-rounded, responsible adults. For that reason, my naughty chair is staying exactly where it is.