It’s been a while, but I found this to be a worthy article (from the New York Times) and important to read for anyone who parents. Several parenting “experts” have continued to propose that the withholding of praise and affection is an effective form of discipline, while research seems to be supporting that such “conditional parenting” may not be the best approach:
“It turned out that children who received conditional approval were indeed somewhat more likely to act as the parent wanted. But compliance came at a steep price. First, these children tended to resent and dislike their parents. Second, they were apt to say that the way they acted was often due more to a “strong internal pressure” than to “a real sense of choice.” Moreover, their happiness after succeeding at something was usually short-lived, and they often felt guilty or ashamed.”
The authors offer an alternative to conditional parenting,
“In practice, according to an impressive collection of data by Dr. Deci and others, unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.”
I’ve always had a bad feeling about that Dr. Phil, but now there’s some data to back me up.
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