corpus mentium Posted April 22, 2014 Posted April 22, 2014 I was hoping that the community could start building up a thread of success stories shared by parents using peaceful parenting methods during negotiating and resolving conflicts with/among their children. I know I have seen a few scattered here and there on the forum, but I think it would be beneficial to consolidate these stories into a nice, long thread that can be shared around the internet wherever pro-spanking and coercive parenting statements are encountered. I think this could be especially helpful to those like me who don't yet have children but want to spread the peaceful parenting message and want to show real world examples of how it can work, not to mention gain some knowledge and wisdom for future parenting reference. I invite parents to share stories of all kinds, both from those who have employed peaceful parenting strategies from the beginning as well as from those who shifted to peaceful parenting mid-stream. I would also like to ask peaceful parents who grew up in a not-so-peaceful environment to share (if they are comfortable doing so, of course) comparisons of situations from their childhoods to similar situations they encounter while raising their children now – typical things like bedtimes, chores, toothbrushing, sharing communal resources like the TV, computer, etc. If you grew up in a household where your parents employed peaceful strategies, don't hesitate to share your stories either, whether you have children now or not. I think it would be great to hear perspectives from your point of view. I think it would be of particular help and interest if stories could be shared by parents who have changed from coercive parenting to peaceful parenting. What kinds of changes did you see in your children and your relations with them after you made the shift? Was there a transitional period that your children needed before things really improved? If so, how long was it? How did you go about making the shift to peaceful parenting? Finally, please don't feel that you need to limit your responses only to my questions, suggestions and requests as listed above. They are only meant as examples to get the ball rolling. Since I am asking questions from a position of practical ignorance, I am sure there probably are many things that I am missing and important questions that I may not be asking. If anyone has something that they think I should add or refine in this post, by all means, send me a PM and I will make an appropriate update.
v_bachvarov Posted May 27, 2014 Posted May 27, 2014 I had problems with my kid about a 1,5 y. ago. She ate too much candy. And we had those quarrels where she screamed and insisted to get even more candy. One day I had the idea to use the free market principles to solve the problem. Enter capitalism. I printed small notes, called "gummibear dollars" and we made the rules. 1 gummibear costs 1 GB dollar. She can earn the dollars by doing stuff I need or like. So far she has watered the plants, she has sold me a bunch of her pictures or she has helped me with some small deeds. Each time we bargain - how much would the thing cost. When she earns them, she can spend them on sweets anytime. I have recently begun paying her with fiat currency. She's become more responsible and mature. We haven't had a single quarrel about candy since. It has been a staggering success. I later split our family finances with my wife, because we had so many arguements about whether to buy something or not. Since the financing split we have had almost no fights at all. So recap: - As we had communism in the family, we fought, we argued, we screamed and we were unhappy. - Since we introduced capitalism, our life has become very very peaceful and happier in general. Everyone knows what is theirs. Initially I thought that communism works on a small scale (family), but now I am not sure even about this. I guess freedom and property rights beat communism even on this scale.
LanceD Posted June 6, 2014 Posted June 6, 2014 My oldest son is actually my step son, though I only make the distinction here because it's important to the story. Recently during a visit with his bio dad he did some such thing that made his bio dad angry and resulted in him threatening to spank my son. At which point my son responded by telling "no you are not allowed to do that to me" and was assertive enough to back his bio dad down from the threat. There is a myriad of other stories I could tell that are examples of the success of peaceful parenting but none quite compare. Thinking of a seven year old standing up to a 30 year old man with such conviction is powerful.
corpus mentium Posted June 13, 2014 Author Posted June 13, 2014 I have recently updated the OP to this thread. Thanks to v_bachvarov and LanceD who have contributed so far. LanceD, if you think your other stories could help parents who are in similar situations, please don't hesitate to share. Below is a link to a conversation between Stef and two expecting parents from a recent call-in show. The callers asked Stef about parenting situations that have tested his resolve and he shared some stories. http://youtu.be/dUY9HyYyxnA?t=1h49m26s I hope that others here will start sharing their stories so that this thread can become something very helpful to a great number of people. In addition to one of Mike's closing comments, I would also like to encourage more people to call in to the show with parenting related issues. I think they really are important. Based on what Stef and Mike were saying regarding the call-in shows being the most popular downloads, I think having more conversations about peaceful parenting would really help to get the message out to an even larger number of people.
LanceD Posted June 14, 2014 Posted June 14, 2014 I think your one problem is that once parents really do peaceful parenting the parenting difficulties all but stop. The only issues we ever have are directly caused by the time when we weren't peaceful parents. Once that stuff gets worked out things get pretty easy and there just isn't much worth writing about.
corpus mentium Posted June 15, 2014 Author Posted June 15, 2014 I think your one problem is that once parents really do peaceful parenting the parenting difficulties all but stop. The only issues we ever have are directly caused by the time when we weren't peaceful parents.Once that stuff gets worked out things get pretty easy and there just isn't much worth writing about. I've thought about this too, and it's a great point. That is why I updated the OP in an effort to elicit from others some contrasts of peaceful parenting to non-peaceful parenting situations. From what I understand, there are certain things that children do and say that peaceful parents would be less likely to react to (or they would react completely differently) where coercive parents might more likely lose their cool. In this respect, I think parents who have switched to peaceful parenting during, rather than prior to, child rearing would be some of the most likely to contribute to this thread. My idea is that those who have successfully switched to peaceful parenting may have the biggest impact and provide some of the best practical examples to parents who currently use more coercive methods.Here is a reply to the video I referenced in my previous post above: Pretty interesting topic with the last call. I feel the need to somewhat share my experience with how my parents handled the situation of my brother and I wanting superfluous things when we were young. The first memory I have of this was when I was about 3, my brother was 7. We REALLY wanted something at the store. My brother and I were pleading with my mom and dad if we could have it. I remember my mom asking us, "Is it your Birthday?" We would reply no Then she'd ask "Is it Christmas?" Of course, we replied no She then asked "Do you have money to buy it yourself?" We didn't, so our answer was 'no' But she then asked us if we would like to earn money and be able to buy whatever we wanted. This sounded great, so we said yes. When we got home my mom and dad arranged a 'job' situation of sorts for us. They said we would be paid according to how productive we were. My brother was an excellent singer and loved music at a very young age. I was a artist, loved to draw and tell stories. My mom and dad made a deal with us that we would be paid for being productive in our talents.I would write stories, draw pictures, sometimes make comics. My mom would review over it for grammatical errors and often times it was turned into a learning experience for me. I wrote so many stories and drew so many pictures in my childhood. My brother would write songs and record them. I got paid per picture and per page of story that I had written, my brother got paid per song. The reward pay differed between us, of course. (It took my brother a lot longer to write and record a song than it took me to draw pictures, so he got paid more per song, but I could get through my art projects quicker than he could). The only catch was that whatever materials were required for our talents/for us to be productive were to be bought by our parents, no charge to us—for example, my parents were the ones to buy the recording machines and microphones, etc, etc for my brother and they would buy me sketch pads, colored pencils, paints, etc. I guess they viewed this as a way of incentivizing us to use our talents and not just sit and play video games all day. It really did work, I continue to draw and write stories, even today, 20 some years later—often times it’s even therapeutic for me. It’s also worthy to note that my parents didn’t give us the actual physical money. My dad would print out these little slips he made on Paint Shop Pro and those would account for value. I don’t think my parents ever gave a name to them, but for some reason my brother and I started calling the ‘smelly cards’, I think it was because the ink smelled funny. Each smelly card was worth 5 USD. This also led to a lot of bartering and fun negotiations between my brother and I, using our personal balance of smelly cards. So basically, all the toys, stuffed animals and sweets/snacks my brother and I bought over the course of our childhood was bought by us with our money that we had earned. And let me tell you, we had a lot of toys. But they weren’t superfluous toys or garbage we wouldn’t use. Before my brother or I would ever make a purchase, we thought about it really hard, how much did we really want this? Because it was our money, we tried our best to use it wisely. Sometimes I would save my money for something big, sometimes I’d just buy a bunch of little things or candy. Other times I would find something I wanted and would check how much money I had left, only to find I didn’t have enough, so I would go home and start working on my next project. Also, it was a good ‘punishment’ system for my parents. This didn’t happen often, but sometimes my brother and I would get very rowdy and would end up breaking something. A specific memory I have was my brother and I wresting in the living room. My dad told us to be careful and not to break anything or to take it outside, but we ended up breaking a lamp. Our ‘punishment’ for breaking the lamp was that we had to pay for it ourselves with our money and the balance was deducted from us. So that’s how my parent’s handled us when we were young. In ways it was my first introduction into the free market and I loved it. I had so many toys, games and fun as a kid because I could buy or do whatever I wanted with my money and I was willing to ‘work’ (really, drawing and writing stories never became boring for me, I loved it) as hard as I needed to get whatever I wanted. I don't know how well this system would hold up today, but maybe some of you will find this useful
kerou Posted June 16, 2014 Posted June 16, 2014 I've thought about this too, and it's a great point. That is why I updated the OP in an effort to elicit from others some contrasts of peaceful parenting to non-peaceful parenting situations. From what I understand, there are certain things that children do and say that peaceful parents would be less likely to react to (or they would react completely differently) where coercive parents might more likely lose their cool. In this respect, I think parents who have switched to peaceful parenting during, rather than prior to, child rearing would be some of the most likely to contribute to this thread. My idea is that those who have successfully switched to peaceful parenting may have the biggest impact and provide some of the best practical examples to parents who currently use more coercive methods.Here is a reply to the video I referenced in my previous post above: Well I'm glad you found my childhood story useful I have a few other stories of interesting ways my parent's raised my brother and I if anyone else would like to hear more. I had honestly thought I had a pretty normal upbrining until I started coming into contact with 'normal' people, I remember that being a pretty big culture shock for me at the time. Very thankful for my parents. If anyone has any questions about certain periods in a child's life (pre-teen, sibling relationships, teenage years, etc) I will do my best to answer based on how my parents handled these parts of our lives.
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