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 your kids? Many times, I would have liked to soak some towels and leave them on my partner’s side of the bed, for all the times he leaves his wet shower towel on my side. Hey, it’s reasonable, related, but respectful? Most of what we do to kids in the form of punishment is not respectful. If we wouldn’t want it done to ourselves, why would we do it to them? As much as we like to tell the kids that consequences are positive discipline, ultimately, children will decide what kind of relationship they will have with you, and you can influence that by focusing on your goal in parenting-respect.
Research also shows that although punishment sometimes works in order to get obedience, it does nothing for the relationship. Fear and anger enter the parent-child relationship, and that effects communication, trust, respect and the simple joy of being together. So why do parents keep clinging to it in spite of the research? We do it to relieve our anger. It takes practice, but when we separate our anger from our discipline, we make much better decisions.
How to tell if consequences are punitive or solving a problem? If there is only one solution and its coming just from you, it might be punitive. If you are soliciting ideas from your child and you both choose win-win solutions together, then it is problem-solving.
There is help. We are now seeing new parenting programs teaching collaborative, relationship-building, non-punitive parenting such as Terrific Toddlers, Joan Durrant’s Positive Discipline, The Growing Brain, as well as updated old standbys such as Non-Violent Communication, and Parent Effectiveness Training.
My kids now range in age of 17 to 28 and I’m happy that our relationships are engulfed in mutual respect. When we have disagreements or problems, we negotiate. Negotiation makes me human with real needs and the rights to get my needs met, just as the kids have the right to get their needs met. We are very influential to each other.
I met with a lot of resistance from society about my non-punitive parenting throughout the years. Relatives questioned my stance. My parents felt I was judging their ways and friends agreed that the topic was off the table if we wanted to remain friends. Now that my oldest children are young adults, and pretty decent human beings, the comments have lessened.
When I teach parents about dropping punishments, I can see the look of surprise and skepticism on their faces. No parent ever goes home after a class and drops all punishments. It’s a process. We let go of punishments one at a time. We see how much harder they are to implement and how much effort it takes from us to continue them. We also see how much it effects our children’s relationship with us.
A common question I hear is, “The world is full of consequences. They have to learn them sometime!” My response is to let the rest of the world punish. You don’t have to. You are building a lifelong love relationship with your child (which the rest of the world is not doing) and don’t have to punish. Just provide nurturing (love) and structure (teaching). You will raise a caring, responsible and good citizen. No fear and no anger towards parents yield high communication, less rebellion, less stress and much less attitude from the child. You can be close and trusted enough that they will come to you with their problems. You can enjoy activities with your teen because they want to spend time with you.
So every day, take a little baby step closer to non-punitive parenting. Young children get better self-control with increased age. It’s a brain development issue; not a discipline issue. You will have many, many, moments to teach your child in the school-aged years. Don’t project ahead. A child who hits at three will not be hitting at 13. Even if your kids are teens, start today. First, work on trying to try to curb your anger. Go outside and take a few deep breaths, go yell in the toilet, or drink a glass of water to calm-down. Once everyone’s calm, then take action. If your child is under three years, teach and redirect. If your child is older than three, help them to problem-solve possible outcomes with you. Aim for win-win solutions that meet their needs and your needs. You have my guarantee; you will enjoy the teen years!
Most Warmly, Judy
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(upbeat music) Conscious Living in a Zunktout World. You're listening to "Bavosh Done" with James D. Newcomb. Brought to you by Grandma Petruo. (upbeat music) - If you're praising your children, you're doing it wrong, says our guest on today's episode. Maybe I misunderstood a little bit of what she said, but that's part of the message. From Judy Arnall, who we heard on this podcast, we were talking about unschooling. And I actually found myself asking more questions about parenting when we're in our discussion on unschooling. And it turns out that Judy has also 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. Judy, it's nice to have you back. - Yes, thanks for having me back. - And I've actually written a book myself. It's about writing short, succinct book titles. I don't know, can I share it with you? - I wish that wasn't so long 'cause I was my first book and I learned it was a mouthful. - Okay, 135 tools. How did you come up with that number? - There are actually 135 tools in there. And it's a lot. We have different tools for different ages. Most books cover from zero to age five and my book covers from zero to age 20. So you need more tools in your toolbox. - How many tools do you need from zero to age five? - Oh, probably three. - Three, which are? - Which are? - Childproofing, supervision, and offering choices. I would say-- - Offer choices. - Yeah, just because children's brains aren't that well developed. - Yeah, so you just have to manage the environment, I think, more than the child. - I found that, I found your book very interesting because I grew up looking back in my childhood. It was very healthy, but it was also, there were times where there was punishment. And I don't look back at my childhood with any regret or resentment. I know that my parents, they had good intentions. They meant well. And I'm not bitter towards them in any way for spanking me when I did wrong. And so I just want to, I'm just interested in hearing your take on parenting because it's different from what I experienced and probably different from what a lot of people have experienced in their childhood. If you could just maybe give us a little bit of a background of the book, your own parenting journey, maybe ways that it differed. Like your parenting style now differs from your own childhood. I'm just curious about a couple of the background information. - Okay, yes. And you know what? I agree with you. Most parents have very good intentions. But without any parent education or knowledge of current research, parents tend to revert back to how they were raised. - Right. - Especially under stress. I know I've been there like you and like many people we have been raised with at least spanking and other forms of punishment. - Right. - Right now the current punishment is time outs and taking away technology. And parents, 85% of parents use punishment to guide their children's behavior in spite of the research stating that punishment is ineffective in building relationships. So I was raised with spanking and I grew up and I remember through the teen years I was so angry at my parents because they wouldn't listen, they would just punish. And that contributed to a bad relationship. Of course relationships get better in the 20s and 30s but the parents who are so scared of the teen years wonder why and it's usually because they choose punishment to guide behavior. When I had my first child, I decided absolutely I'm not going to spank. And I did once and he was four years old and he turned to me crying and he said, "Mummy, hitting people hurts people." And the whole time I, something I had said to him so he threw it back at me and he was totally right. So that was the last time I did any spanking and my partner too, he didn't spank but we did use punishments like time out and consequences and things like that. And then I noticed when my kids reached about age seven, eight, it was affecting our communication. They wouldn't come to me with problems 'cause they'd be fit while being punished for things. They wouldn't talk about their feelings to me. And I thought, this isn't good. I do want open lines of communication. I do want my kids to come to me when they need my help and advice to solve a problem. We dropped all punishments then. So my youngest three, my oldest two had experienced time outs but my youngest three have never been punished. My claim to fame as I've raised five teenagers, four boys and a girl without taking away technology, without taking doors off their rooms, without grounding them, although they're introverts, I think grounding would have, they would have actually liked that. (laughs) But without getting punishments and I have to say the teen years were the best years. It was so fabulous the relationships we had then and that we have now because of not using punishment. - All right. My child is, he's nine years old now and he's actually listening to my, he's in the room right now. So he's hearing what I'm saying. - Good. - And he's actually, he's been coughing a bit. So I might need to do some editing. My son, okay, okay. When my son was born, made the decision that I was going to spank. But I was gonna, I wasn't gonna do it out of anger or just out of, I'm frustrated and so I'm just gonna take out my frustrations on you because you're essentially getting on my nerves. I thought that was a sign of immaturity in my opinion. When my first wife and I separated and we divorced, I decided spanking is out of the question. I'm not gonna do that. I did it. The boy's got enough going on in his life right now without having to worry about his dad hitting him on the butt when he does something wrong. But, and I wanna get your take on this because I've heard very good explanations or ways of doing spanking that are actually very healthy from what I understand. It's when the child has done something that they know is wrong. They violated a rule of the house or maybe it's a religious household. They violated one of God's laws and so they need to face consequences for their actions. And the way they do it is very intentional. It's very thoughtful. The father, it's usually the father that does the spanking. He'll say, okay, now little Sally, I don't want to do this but you know that you've done what you did was wrong and there are consequences for your actions. And it's a very thoughtful, it's a very deliberate, intentional way of raising children. What are your thoughts on something like that? - I hear those arguments all the time too and there are holes in those arguments and let's use an example when I talk about one example in my book, Parenting with Patients. And it's when my youngest son who was very strong-willed, he wanted some chips before dinner and I said, no, we're gonna have dinner soon, no chips. So he took a big bag, Costco-sized bag of chips from Robert up to his room. I didn't see this happening. And he was so mad, he opened the bag and poured the chips all over his carpet and then he proceeded to stamp every last one of those chips into his carpet. - All right. - And I like using this example 'cause this is when parents, even parents who vow not to spank pull out the big guns. Deliberate disobedience is, we're angry at that, right? Now, you are amazing if you can control your anger and spank not in anger, but if I was a spanking person, I would have gone out there and gave him a few good wallops. - Okay. - Absolutely. But we didn't because we have to model self-control to our kids. That's where they learn it from. And one of us needs to be in control. He was out of control with his anger. I had to stay in control. And for me, taking a time out to deal with my anger was the best thing at that moment. I am modeling to him how adults deal with anger. Throwing chips all over a rug is not the way to deal with it. It's a four year old kind of way, but not the way I wanna teach him. Now, would spanking have shown him how to handle his anger or how to solve the problem of the chips all over the carpet? No. I'm not saying that I'm permissive and let him off the hook. Peking a time out means that I'm not going to deal with it in a moment, I'm just gonna get a grip. And then I'm gonna come back and there are going to be consequences. When I say consequences, I don't mean consequences meant to hurt. I, what kids need to know is how to fix things, how to make things right, how to make restitution. So for him, one of the first things is clean up the mess. So I taught him how to clean up the mess. And with all my kids, I made sure they knew how to fix things and make good for things. If they break their friends' toys, I show them how to pay for it or replace it. If they deliberately wreck somebody's, a little kid's sand castle at the beach, I taught them here is how to fix it, how to make it better. So focus on solving the problem, not focus on paying for what they did, but focus on how to make things better. And that is called discipline, that is not punishment. Discipline is meant to teach how to fix. Punishment is meant to hurt for path retribution. Okay. So punishment is like an act of vengeance. You've hurt me and I'm gonna hurt you. - Yes. - Got it. - Yeah. - And I'm not trying to, I'm not gonna try to argue with you or try to change your mind, but I think the people that I've heard advocate for spanking in the way that I described is, it has the same goal. Like take control of your emotions, explain to the child what they've done, what you've done is wrong. And now you have to face consequences for it. And here's a few wax on the butt and then get on with life. I'll get out, get on with life. And I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm trying to find some common ground in different ways of viewing parenting and disciplining. Now I want to know what you, and I've already joked about it when I first started this interview. And you had a statement about praising your children. And I don't remember exactly what it said, and I don't have it right in front of me, but you said that praising children is not healthy or there's a difference between encouragement and praise. I was wondering if you could just touch on that briefly. - Sure. I think the thing we want to be careful about is not to praise our kids for every little thing they do. Because then they grow up and they become praise junkies. They crave it, they want it. And praise tends to be more for the end result. Where encouragement and appreciation tends to be more for the efforts involved. And it praises what you say, an example is what you say when a child wins a race. They won, and you give them praise like, "Oh, you're fantastic, great job, blah, blah, blah." But what do you say to the child who doesn't win the race? When it's putting a good effort, right? That's what you say, I appreciate your effort. I am so thankful that you emptied the dishwasher 'cause now I can start supper or whatever. You focus on the effort involved. And I think kids need a lot of that. They need a lot of validation that you love them just for who they are, not for just what they do, but for who they are that they exist in the world and they're your child. Yeah, maybe it's a matter of semantics. And I think even if parents praise, that's fine. I think punishment is the big bad one. - You praise your son for finishing the race, but you don't praise him for putting his shoes on to run. Good job, you tied your shoes way to go. - I would do that too because that's a good thing too. - If they're nine years old, you praise them for putting on their shoes. What I'm hearing, and maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying is you don't praise them for doing things that is just part of life. You don't praise them for brushing their teeth. That's just what you do. - You're right, yeah, absolutely, yeah. - So it gets to be too much. - Yeah, but look for things that I think everybody means affirmations every day. So look for things when they don't want to do their homework and they actually sit down and start doing it. Those are things we need to notice and say something about because oftentimes we don't. - All right, let's go back a little bit to parents who've punished their children via spanking, timeout, taking away iPad, stuff like that. What is the motivation for parents to do these things? Because I've observed parents and I'm a pretty lax father. I'm more in line with your way of doing things when it comes to parenting. But I look at some parents who just impulsively yell or raise their voice with their children when they act up. And I just think you're just embarrassed. You think that your child is embarrassing you and you need to cover up the child's actions so that you're like, we just have this ingrain fear of sticking out from the crowd. And I think that, and I want to get your take on this, why are parents so prone to just lash out at their kids, especially in public? - Yeah, I think there's a lot of judgment that parents feel out there. And it's hard, I remember feeling it too. When your child throws a tantrum in the middle of Walmart and everyone's looking at you to see what you're going to do about it. Well, you're feeling that judgment. Your primary feeling is embarrassment and anger at the child for acting this way. And you just want to prove that you're the boss, you're in control. But I think, and believe me, I did my share of yelling too. Maybe I didn't spank or didn't punish, but I did yell a lot, not that I'm proud of it, but hey, no parents perfect, right? And as my kids got older, like into the team years, I had less to yell about. So when they were in their twenties, I said to them, do you remember all the times I used to yell at you when you were young? And thank goodness they didn't remember. Just good. - Right. - But I think why parents punish is because it's quick, it's easy, it's something they know from their childhood, their parents did it, so they do it. And a lot of times they don't know what else to do. And that's why a lot of parents would benefit from parenting education, like taking a course on how to build relationships with your kids instead of using punishment. 'Cause research shows that even parents who have university degrees still don't have a lot of parent education or knowledge of child development, especially in the early years, something like 43% of parents think that a child that's three years old can control their tantrums and their emotions when they count. So it's unrealistic expectations that parents have, where if they had more knowledge of child development, brain development, when kids get self-control, they would have more reasonable expectations. A lot of times it's not a discipline issue, it's a development issue. And just knowing that maybe your expectations are too much means that, "Hey, maybe I'll let this one go." Oh, wow. - Right, that's something that you mentioned in your book is the difference between punishment and discipline. And this is a matter of semantics, but there are very important differences in the etymology of the words. So could you just briefly describe the differences between the two? Because you don't want in a home where the kids can just do whatever they want, whenever they feel like it. And I don't think that's what you're advocating at all. But what I feel like you're advocating is you, and maybe I completely understand what you're advocating, but just if you could just give us the difference between disciplining a child and punishing them. - Right, sure, 'cause to go back a bit when you said that we're all someone on the same page where we try to control our emotions, teach kids what's wrong, and how wack it in the butt does that. But there are differences. So discipline tends to be proactive where punishment is reactive. So discipline also includes childproofing, putting things away that are problem issues. For example, my kids between the ages of two and eight used to fight all the time they were playing board games, fight, I'm just packing them away for a few years. That's discipline, that's proactive. Where punishment is reactive, it's an automatic, oh, if you swear at me, I'm gonna thank you. That's reactive, and let's be honest, most parents do punish out of anger. Not many parents have the self control to calm down and then punish, and if they do, then they can do more discipline, problem solving instead of punishment if they have that level of self control. And the difference is discipline tends to be very positive. It's focusing on what to do rather than what was done. Punishment tends to be negative. Punishment is designed to hurt the child to teach. Discipline is just designed to teach and teach what to do in the future rather than the past. And the biggest one, the biggest reason is if you wanna teach a child a lesson by spanking or taking away their technology, that does not build the relationship. There is no research out there that shows that punishment builds a parent-child relationship. And that's what parenting is all about these days, especially since we can't control our kids, especially online, we need those lines of communication open. And if you're gonna shut them down with punishment, your child's not gonna come to you when they need help. And that's a big part of discipline is you are lending your expertise, your experience to your child to help them fix problems. And they're are gonna come to you when they need help. - Good stuff, I had a question on the tip of my tongue and I got thinking about something else. Okay, let me ask this. So what are some of the ways that you personally, 'cause you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders and a bit, what you say about your parenting success is true, you've done pretty well. What are the ways that you, excuse my child, can you hear that? - No. - Okay, you can't hear any coffee. It's just a distraction for me. What are some of the ways that you foster to a healthy environment in your home with just this worldview of discipline over punishment? - Okay, one of the things we did was we taught everybody to take a time out to get a grip when they're angry or upset. - A voluntary time out versus go sit in the corner because I'm angry at you. - Yeah. - Okay. - Well, the person that's angry or wants to punish the other person takes the time out. - Okay. - Okay, got it. - We did a lot of family meetings to sit down and hash out what we're gonna do when people's behavior bugs other people, especially with five kids and two adults. - Yeah, we were a household of seven people living together. Where's a lot of issues that come up? - We always promoted choices. So when it was time to do chores, we gave choice when it was time to get things, gave choice and time, that kind of thing. We did a lot of choices. We did a lot of child proofing. So things that were problem areas, we would put them away, change the environment rather than the person. I even did that with my partner. Other things are to listen. We did a lot of empathetic active listening. So when people were upset, we would listen to the feelings and validate the feelings, even if we didn't agree with their position. And we would use a lot of eye messages. So we would say things like, I'm angry when you take so much time on the computer. The kids had to share a computer for a few years. Rather than saying, you're a poopy hat or rather than name calling, we use often language. - Got it. - Yeah. - What kind of language did you say? - Eye language. - Eye language. Okay, I feel such and such. - I feel, I think, I believe, yeah. - How do you establish ground rules when it comes to things like video games? Because my son, who's listening to me right now, if I let him have his way and maybe I'm misunderstanding, maybe I don't know my son as well as I think I do, but he would just play roadblocks all day, every day, which I don't think is healthy. And I feel like it's incumbent on me as his dad to show him if you go outside and get some exercise, it's good for you. And there's always resistance to put the iPad away or the switch and then go outside. But then when he goes outside, he's great. He loves it and he doesn't want to come back in. And I hear what you're saying, and I've listened to other parenting experts on how to do such and such when it comes to being permissive, but I don't want to be so permissive that he misses out on the good things in life. How do you establish boundaries? Is it a matter of sitting down once a month and say, this is how much iPad I think that you should do per day? Do you agree with this? How can I go about that? - Yes, I remember those times too. And that age, absolutely, they're going to crumble. And I remember you get them outside and then they're happy and then they don't want to come in. I remember those days. But yes, you're absolutely right. You sit down and you hash it out. You wait for this problem solving. So for ongoing things that constantly present problems like screen time, you sit down with one child or as a family unit and you say, here are my concerns. I think you need more exercise and fresh air. I want you to have a whole variety of activities, not just screen time. I worry that your eyesight is getting bad. So you list all your concerns and then your child lists all the reasons why they love screen time because you want to get them involved in solutions. And you can do this from age five on up. So this was our primary mode of discipline for all our kids from age five and up. We would problem solve issues. So once you get each other's needs down, then you come up with solutions that work for everybody, your brainstorm and you let them come up with solutions first, 'cause once you start talking, they're going to shut down. So, and they got to have some buy-in. They got to see that this works for them, for them to continue to do it with you. So they come up with some solutions. You come up with some solutions and then you go through each one and say, "No, that's not going to work for me." Suppose your son says, "I want to play games 18 hours a day." That's the one you're going to say, "No, that doesn't work for me." And then, but he's going to say some of your solutions aren't going to work for him. And that's okay too. So hopefully you come up with some solutions that work for all of you. Now, in terms of screen time, I do recommend you come up with a family policy that everybody abides to, including you, because modeling is also a very powerful discipline tool. So then you write it down and you stick it on the wall and that's your family rules for the next week or two until it doesn't work anymore, right? - But this is all idealistic and it sounds great for a podcast interview, but let's be real here, a child who's nine years old can say, "Okay, I'll agree to two hours of iPad time per day." And then tomorrow, well, the two hours comes and goes and he won't get off the iPad. - Right. - And he's belligerent and he's grumbling and he, what do you do in those situations? - Yep, and that's going to happen. But the main point is you sat down with him and problem-solved with him as an active participant. - Right. - He's going to remember that, that's good. So the next day up, he's going to grumble because he loves screen time and tours a day is not enough. But you problem-solve this, you have this little contract on the wall and you're just going to have to ignore the grumbling because he has a right to express his unhappy emotions and you just enforce it to us. You enforce it two hours a day. - How do you enforce it without punitive action? - That's not punitive, he's agreeing to this. - But he's not abiding by his agreement. He's just, he will not, he's going to, and I mean, I can take it away from him and just be and show him who's boss. But that's contrary to what we're talking about in this conversation. - Yeah, but follows through on problem-solving is that's an adult thing, right? You're teaching him how to act as an adult. You're teaching him that if he agrees to the problem-solving session, he has to commit to it for a certain amount of time. And I always say, run it for a week, run it for two weeks. If it's not working for some person, and usually it is, I can't tell you how many times we rehash bedtimes or we rehash who gets to sit where in the van because it didn't work for one or two people and they're grumbling about it. But for, you're not going to sit down and do this every day, but for that week or two weeks that you're putting it into action, you accept the grumbling, but you enforce it because they agreed to it. And it really helps to get them to sign their name to the agreement too, so they can actually see they agreed. And we're teaching them an adult skill. Well, this is, I know this takes a lot of time. Parents, I don't have time for this. And I say, how much time do you spend enforcing a punishment that is negative? You're putting your energy into something negative? This is positive. This is an adult skill. They're going to use problem solving with their future partner, their boss, their neighbor. I see my kids in their 20s and 30s now using this with their siblings or their partners. Life-long skill, that's positive. All right, that's good. This ties in a little bit to another theme that you've mentioned in your book several times. And that is this concept of bribing children. And what you describe as bribery is for a lot of parents, just that's just how we get kids to do what we want them to do. We reward them with extra iPad time, for example. Or if they do such and such, if they clean their room, then we take them out for ice cream or something like that. And where do you draw the line between simply doing nice things with your kids versus giving them nice things as rewards for doing what they should be doing? - I give a lot of verbal appreciation to the kids. I do not pay for marks. I do not pay for chores. I do not pay for things that they have to do as normal life expectations. And I've been pretty consistent about that all through. And the kids know that. They know not to expect that. And then they turn around on me when I ask, when they, like we, when they say, if I ask them to, for example, put all these logs in our front yard in the backyard. And they say, what will you give me? And I say, my undying love and appreciation. And it's funny, 'cause they turn it around on me too, right? But I think, no, I think you reward with appreciation and that's it. And that's what kids learn. And the comment I hear from parents is getting rewards or getting a paycheck is something that was part of life. - Right. - But what I say is that doing something for nothing, for volunteering is the hard word lesson to teach kids. That some things you have to do because you have to do them. And you're gonna get anything as a reward. - That's something that my son and I just, we just had a discussion today. 'Cause we've been talking about, he's gonna be staying with us more than he has for the summer and hopefully beyond. But we're talking about chores and different jobs that are appropriate for a child his age. And he just came out of the blue and he just said, you know what? A job that I could, what my job could be is to take the dog out. 'Cause the dog needs to go out and take care of her business. And I thought, congratulations, you just gave yourself a job. And so I said, okay, here's the little bag for the dog's poop. And here's how you put on the harness and the leash. And I'm gonna show you, we live in an apartment, take him down. This is where you take her. I just showed him the ropes and he did it. He did a good job. And he finished and he said, okay, how much are you gonna pay me? (laughing) And I said, I'm not gonna pay you anything 'cause this is your job. I said, how about I give you three meals a day and a place to sleep? And he just looked at me like, that's not what I had in mind, dad. And this is really a question. It's just an observation. We literally had this conversation within an hour of us getting on this call. - Yeah, that's great. Good for him. That's a nine year old entrepreneur there, but yeah, you have to. And you could respond by, you know what you get? You get the pleasure of pet ownership. - There you go. - When my kids say, if they said to me, oh, how much are you gonna pay me to read this book for my book report? I'm not, you get the pleasure of education. - Right. - And the other thing I wanted to mention is, if you don't pay for things like that and you don't punish your kids, you're building that strength of a relationship. You want to do things to please you. You will see that in a teen years. You'll say, oh, do you think you could do me a favor and run to the post office? And then we'll do it because you have a good relationship and you don't punish them. - Right. Hey, Gabriel, you were asking about how much I'm gonna pay you to take the dog out? Remember, you get the joy of pet ownership. How's that sound? He's not too enthused about that. He'll get it. He'll come around. Don't worry. - Yes, he will. Yeah. And you know what? And you gotta recognize too that kids up until the age of 13, they don't want to do your stuff. They want to grumble about it. And that's just part of parenting. You'll be consistent. You keep it up. You listen to the grumbling, but it still has to be done. And yeah. And then in the teen years, they'll do it without grumbling. - Yeah. One objection that I don't know if it's like something that was a sticking point for me personally, but something that I could see is a sticking point for a lot of people is look at the world around us. You go to school and there's punishment for, I think my son got punished for poking somebody with a racer, with his pencil. Really, minor thing. But he got yelled at. He got disciplined, embarrassed in front of his peers, which didn't sit well with me. But that's the reality. It's a very punitive society. It's a litigious society. You raise a child without thinking that there are consequences for your actions. And you look at somebody wrong, and all of a sudden you're in court, giving an answer to a judge, why did you do this? - I don't know, because I just felt like being friendly, and I'm making up a scenario. But it's such a punitive society in which we live. How do you, like, and you have experience with this? So how does your children react, or how do they adjust to this society, which is very harsh after their experience in your household? - Absolutely. Oh, there's punishment all around. - Right. And just because you don't punish doesn't mean that your child's not gonna experience punishment at school, or from a soccer coach, or from their friends' parents. I remember when one son, he was probably about 11, and he was spitting off a ferris wheel at a park. And I was horrified, but as soon as we got off, the ride operator handed him a bottle and a cloth, and said, "You clean that seat." And I was back in a way. I said, "We'll wait over here." I was going to stop that. And the rest of the world is gonna give your child punishments and consequences. And as a good parent, you shouldn't interfere in that. - Okay. - But that doesn't mean you have to punish, because you are building a lifelong relationship with your child. And you have the time to teach them problem solving and invest in adult skills. You, the rest of the world's not gonna be around to see your child as a teenager or adult. They don't care. - Exactly. - But you, you're building that relationship, and you want to invest in it. - Yeah, the third great teacher, they just have this issue of they need law and order in their classroom in that moment. And their student, one of 28 students is acting up. They just, they just have to take care of business, because they have a job to do. But the school year ends, goodbye, miss someone. Maybe I'll see you or run the hallways next year, but they're never gonna interact with that kid in any meaningful way again. - Exactly. - And so you're saying that my approach as the father of my son, it has to be very different, because I'm gonna be his father until death do us part. - Right, and you want better presence on Father's Day. Well, yeah, I think people forget that the parent-child relationship is a love relationship. And in love relationships, there's no room for punishment. I think our divorce rate, and I've been divorced on my, I'm on my trophy husband now, but I think our very high divorce rate is because kids learn to punish their loved ones, or they get punishment from their loved ones in those primary relationships in the family, training ground. They learn to punish siblings, they learn to punish their parents back. And that's simply not a good way to build lifelong love relationships, is to punish each other. Problem solving is a much more useful tool. - Okay, so you're saying that if a child is punished when they're growing up, they'll get married and they take the same tactics with their spouse, and what were you saying with that? - Maybe not, maybe not spanking, obviously. - Of course not, but punitive action, like you made me angry and I'm gonna punish you somehow with, I'm gonna withhold sex from you. - We do, we withhold sex, we don't talk to them for a few days, we're punishing them, we're not making one meal, we punish in various ways, and we don't naturally just take a timeout, calm down, and then come back and start problem solving with our partners. Maybe we do that on day four, but that's way too long. We, that's not our first instinct, and same with kids and siblings, their first instinct is to hit each other, name, call, or be mean to each other when really, they're often fighting over issues, and they need skills on how to work out those issues with their loved ones. - All right, I had this whole list of questions that I wanted to ask you, and I think I got through the whole list, this is good. I do have one final question, and you have 135 tools for raising caring responsible children without timeout, spanking, punishment, or bribery. What is the most obscure tool of those 135? - Oh, I'm scared. - You've never been asked this, have you? - No, I haven't asked that before. - You have been asked every single question I've asked us for, I finally stumped you. - Wow. (laughs) - Oh boy. - Take a shot at it, what is the most obscure tool? - That we would never think of is for parenting. - I would say, having a favorite kid day. - Oh, favorite kid day. - Yes, but make sure all your kids have one. - Okay. (laughs) - Where they get to rule the day, and it gives them control and power, and then you get first choice on a computer, they get the favorite toy, they get the favorite meal, they get to go where they want, and the siblings stay home, yeah. - All right, does that apply to the entire family, or is it just like you as the mother, take one of your children out, and they get to call the shots, or is it like across the board, it applies to the whole family? - I say, whatever the family wants, if they all want to participate in it, then usually for siblings don't want to, but the parents do. - Yeah. - The siblings will go along with it because they know they get their 15 minutes of fame eventually. - Yeah, that's right. - All right, we have been speaking with Judy Arnall. I will have the show notes with her books. We'll also have the episode that we just recently did on unschooling at jamesdenucum.com/Judy2, J-U-D-Y, and the number two. And the book is Discipline Without Distress, 135 tools for raising caring responsible children without timeout, spanking, punishment, or bribery available on Amazon. And of course, if you type in that URL that I just gave, you'll see it there as well. Judy, it's been wonderful. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and insights on both on unschooling a couple of weeks ago, and here on Unparenting. So it's been great, thank you. - Thank you, thank you for having me. And I just wanna mention too, you can get the book from any bookstore anywhere in the world if you want. You don't have to get it from Amazon too. So if you wanna support your local neighborhood bookstore and get it there too. But thank you, James. I loved your real situations with your son. And yeah, yeah, thank you for having me. - I'm just glad I was able to stump you. Every question I've asked, oh, I get that. All the, come on, finally gotcha. All right, thanks, Judy. - Thank you. 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