Childhood is notably the essential phase of your life that shapes many core beliefs that you operate on. However, as we grow up, we must be parents to the little voice in our heads.

I see unconditional parenting by Alfie Kohn as a book to unlearn my past beliefs and prepare my self-worth to survive in a societal system that is different from the family system.

I need to know how to befriend the noisy roommate in my head.

Where Does Your Parent’s Style Came From?

Let’s think about how we are raised.

Our parents are taught how to be parents from-by their parents unconsciously. Everyone was once a child, so our parents will pick up specific rules through imitation and observation. Most parents want their children to conform to rules and authorities but not learn to think for themselves.

Also, social constructs and cultural norms shape how we parent.

I constantly hear, “Oh, because our neighbor’s kids are doing this, I should let my kid learn this too.” However, when all the advice from extended family, physician, and neighbors add up, the diverse opinions will counterbalance all.

In the end, it takes a lot of effort to think about how our beliefs influence our parenting/self-talk style and psychological development

If we do not think about how we talk to ourselves, we will use the same scripts that our parents raised us. Sometimes, that voice is not the best harsh self-talk to live with. The voice in our head does determine the quality of our life.

Kohn explained two types of parenting: the traditional conditional style and the unconditional style.

Unconditional Parenting and Conditional Parenting

Conditional parenting stems are behaviorism from B.F. Skinner, while unconditional parenting is based on the assumption of loving kids for who they are.

Let’s think of a situation it is time for bed, but the kid is very annoyingly crying and still wants to play with her toys.

The conditional style will say: No, she should not be rewarded because crying is not an appropriate activity before bed. She is crying in the dark bedroom is not important for a parent. Then, the parents will withdraw the action of reading bedtime stories.

Conditional parenting operates on visible behaviors but ignores factors you cannot see, such as fear and desire. Behaviorist believes that reward and punishment are what reinforce the behavior. The

How we act is the sum total of who we are.

Conditional parenting reflects a tendency to see almost every human interaction, even among family members, as a kind of economic transaction

The unconditional approach insists the parents will still read the bedtime story together, but the parents will teach and reflect together after reading the story. The basic assumption is that the lesson from the misbehavior is more likely to be learned when she knows that she is still loved by how she behaved.

Unconditional parenting assumes that behaviors are just the out- ward expression of feelings and thoughts, needs and intentions. In a nutshell, it’s the child who engages in a behavior, not just the behavior itself, that matters.

Children are not pets to be trained, nor are they computers programmed to respond predictably to input.

Differences	Unconditional	Conditional
Focus	Whole child (including reasons, thoughts, feelings)	Behavior
Views on Human Nature	Positive or balanced	Negative
View of Human Nature	A gift	A privilege to be earned
“Work with” (Problem solving)	“Working with” (Problem solving)	“Doing to” (Control via rewards and punishments)

Life Application of Book’s Principles: When You Talk to Yourself, How Does the Attitude of Self-Talk Impact Your Behaviors?

Traditional parenting focuses on the behavior of a child instead of how the child feels about the message that we are message — Love in conditional and earned.

How you are talking to yourself is less important than how you feel about your self talk. So, try thinking in reverse and run thought experiments on asking how would you feel if you talk to yourself in an attitude? What are the consequences of your self talk influencing your action in your real world?

Why are the Consequences of Conditional Parenting?

It makes people mad

• When a child cannot feel she is in control, she will feel like she is a victim. The consequence of feeling victims is that eventually, they can become victimizers (bad people).

It models use of power

• Children can learn the use punishment and violence when they have a problem. Using power to make another person unhappy will make them obey to them.

Erodes our relationship with our kids

• Children will not see parents as caring and trustful figures when they have problems in life. The child will be confused on why her parents kiss her, get in the way of what she wants to do, or makes her feels unworthy
• As she grows up, the self-talk in her head could tell her you are “unworthy when you don’t achieve this” or “I’m angry, and I cannot express that to my friends because my friend will ignore me, and I better keep a distance.”

Punishment eventually loses its effectiveness

• Kids will grow older, and the punishment will be close to useless.

The inevitable result of consistently employing the power to control your kids when they are young is that you never learn how to influence.” The more you rely on punishment, therefore, “the less real influence you’ll have on their lives.

Makes kids More Selfish.

• Children consider the consequences of their actions on themselves.

• Since childhood, a child is punished or rewarded for her actions. She is likely to only consider the consequences of doing specific activities when caught.

As we grow up, we ask ourselves the question:

“What do they (the grown-ups with the power) want me to do, and what will happen to me if I don’t do it?”

However, the world does not just operate on the consequences of my action on myself.

The actions have a spillover effect and can influence other people around me.

Time out’s do not teach children to reflect on their actions.

When a child is putting on time out from watching TV for hitting her brother, she will be thinking about how to mean her parents are instead of reflecting on the lesson that her parents intended her to learn.

In addition, when her parents tell her “Don’t let me catch you watching TV”, the child will also have a strong interest in lying because they are taught to not take responsibility for their actions.

Ultimately, values such as honestly, responsibility, and discipline are not taught through that punishment.

Positive Reinforcement of Grades Decrease Your Intrinsic Motivation

Grades are really just an extension of conditional parenting. Grades lead to excessive competition. The psychological price is dependent on self-esteem when we win over a class and make them fail.

1. Students whose primary goal is to get an A were intrinsically motivated by what they are learning. Similarly, rewarded students for sharing with generosity turn out to be less generous in the long run.

As far as I know, every single study that has looked at this question has found that students who are told that an assignment will be graded are less likely to enjoy what they’re doing—and to want to come back to it on their own time

2.Grades leads student to choose an easy assignment because they know they will get good grades on it. The further consequences of picking easy task is that they will not take any risk and be averse to failure. Thus, the child will develop fixed mindset. In their minds, outcomes and successes are more important than the learning process.

3. The goal is to get good grades to make kids think superficially.
This follows the point from above. If the outcome of grades is what matters, the child will be more likely to just know what they need to know for an exam and find tricks for acing exams. The intrinsic curiosity and growth mindset will diminish.

The more we want our children to
(1) be lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas,
(2) avoid sticking with what’s easy and safe, and
(3) become sophisticated thinkers, the more we should do everything possible to help them for- get about grades.

The final question about positive reinforcement is

Whether positive reinforcement has a detrimental effect (and, if so, how detrimental) may vary depending on several factors.
It matters how it’s done: the way praise is phrased, the tone of voice that’s used, whether it’s given in private or in front of others. It matters to whom it’s done: The child’s age and temperament count, as do other variables. And it matters why it’s done

Yes, I know there’s a lot to consider about.

How to Treat Yourself Unconditionally?

The underlying assumption that my self-talk operates on should be that my self-worth and self esteem must not be contingent on my performances and behaviors.

1. Be reflective

• Try to reflect on the motivations of your self talk or parenting style. Why do you talk to yourself or your child in a particular attitude? What are the underlying beliefs you are operating on?

2. Reconsider your request to yourself or your child.

• We have different emotional needs and we need to satisfy all of them in our minds.
• The best scenario will be have negotiate a win-win solution for a demand in the real world. However, sometimes I have to do things that does not satisfy my needs because it is required from school or my work.

3. Keep your eye on your long-term goals

• Think about how you want yourself or your child to develop. If you want yourself to be ethical, deep thinker, and be someone who stick through challenges, think about how your parenting or self talk style will influence your characteristics and values.

4.Work with your children or your self-talk

• We need to work with ourselves because the first person we come to for advice is ourselves. We reflect and think through what’s appropriate or not.
• By putting our needs first, we can draw clear boundaries and put are well-being and self-talk relationship first.

5. Practice perspective shifts.

• Unconditional parents see their child and themselves differently. A so-called inappropriate behavior is a great problem to solve with the kid and teach them something, instead to just throw them another punishment.

6.Detach your identity from your achievements

• I like to focus on developing my identity in terms of values. I believe that values is what should guide my actions, not based on the success that I want. This is much easier said than done
• Here’s a notion worksheet I’ve created from Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) for you to figure out what are your core values.
• Furthermore, here’s another great summary on how the mindset you operate on influences you.