Review Of unconditional Parenting Why Grades Are Making Children Less Self Motivated
Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn was a fascinating and challenging read.
If youre like me, and want to actually find the most effective parenting style, then you want to pick up books that challenge your theories on parenting.
Which is exactly what Unconditional Parenting did for me.
Alfie Kohns main premise, thats backed up by quite a bit of research, is that when parents use positive rewards OR punishment on their children the children learn to see their parents love as Conditional. Hense the title of Unconditional Parenting.
Kohn backs this up with lots of fascinating research.
One study Alfie Kohn outlines in this book was how children who had their homework and test scores graded became less motivated and did worse then children who received no grades for doing the same work.
How is this possible?
Because the classrooms that did not grade their students homework or test scores, and that outperformed the children in a traditional classroom, focused on helping the children develop a joy for learning and the discovery of new information.
Children Lose Motivation To Learn When Their Performance Is Graded
In Unconditional Parenting Kohn also argues that when you give out grades, and a child does not get a good grade, the child feels focuses on how he let the teacher down, or how his mother will feel about the bad grade instead of focusing on what he should be focusing on, learning. And when you take the focus off of the joy of improvement and discovery, motivation almost always decreases.
Which brings up the question, Maybe we should spend less time forcing our children to learn things WE want them to learn, and more time supporting their innate passions and interests? But who am I to say such things since I dropped out of college to do just that and now run a small handful of niche businesses in areas Im passionate about that do multiple millions in sales a year But I digress
When I first started reading Unconditional Parenting I thought to myself, Oh no, not some other bum preaching about self esteem and how we have to always make everyone feel good.
But Im happy to say that I dont think thats what Alfie Kohn was trying to say at all!
In fact Kohn points out several instances where children who were not graded ended up far outperforming the other children. Not because the teacher bribed them with a good grade, or punished them with a bad grade. But something much more effective
They outperformed the other children because by giving the child the freedom to learn in the way they wanted to, they developed a much stronger intrinsic motivation to learn, then children who had been trained to only learn if their was a bribe involved.
He points out that study after study has shown that parents who push their kids to excel whether that be in music, school, learning to read or whatever, are FAR less motivated to continue to get better then a child who are not pushed.
All in all the book brought up some incredibly interesting points, backed up by research that really suggest we stop trying to bribe our children to be good AND stop punishing them for being bad and instead look to a whole new approach.
However
I cant help but respectfully admit that this book rubbed me with an anti-achievement theme that I found troubling.
(If Alfie ever reads this, Alfie, I mean this in the most respectful way and would love to ask you about this in more depth some day, maybe in an interview?)
I dont know if Alfie Kohn was trying to accomplish this anti-achievement feel, and he certainly points out that children can achieve more when they arent graded or scored. But it felt like Kohn was trying to discourage parents from letting their children compete to win, and just focus on having fun instead.
And I find that troubling.
His logic for this was because when children compete just to beat another person, they have been statistically proven time and time again to be less self motivated in the future.
And Kohns right! There is a TON of research out there that backs him up.
However there is also research that shows children dont become less motivated if instead of focusing on just winning, they focus on Self Mastery, meaning they logically evaluate how they did in specific terms.
For example: If a child strikes out while playing a game of baseball, but before the game asked their father to video tape their swing so they can see if they are doing better and then actually analyzes their swing after the game; the research suggests that this type of specific, logical evaluation of trying to Self Master something their passionate about is does NOT cause them to be less self-motivated.
So if I could ask Alfie Kohn one question about his book, that would be the question.
Now I admit the type of child who asks his parents to video tape their at bats so they can see if theyre getting better is about one in a million, but if I could ask Alfie Kohn one question, that would be my question
Can you avoid the negative effects of competition by only competing in things you are incredibly passionate about, and un-forced to compete in by your parents?
Because that kid who asked their dad to video tape their swing, so he could see if he was improving was me as a child, and when it comes to being self motivated I can very honestly say that few stack up with me. And Id be curious to know if Kohn would attribute my hi levels of self motivation to the fact that my parents never pushed me in baseball EVER, or am I just a statistical anomaly.
Either way, you really owe it to yourself to go pick up a copy of Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, it just might change the course of your childs life. Im sure it will for my own.
Thank You Alfie Kohn for a thought provoking book! For more parenting tips and book reviews like this check out http://www.betterparenting.com
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