Sunday, April 08, 2007

Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn believes that children should neither be punished for bad behavior nor rewarded for good behavior, because it's coercive. He also believes that the current school system is not good for them, but I think his kids are in it, because he and his wife both work (at least that's what I hear), and I'm assuming their kids have been either in daycare or with a nanny since infancy. Kind of odd, don't you think? I know in our case, ds being in daycare would be coercive because he won't even stay with a friend for five minutes while I go to the bathroom! I would think it would be a lot easier to be tolerant with your kids if you spent that much less time with them, don't you? Give me 40+ hours a week away from ds and I would bet I would treat him a lot differently. Although getting him to bed would probably be a lot worse of a problem, since he would be wanting to spend more time with me.
I do like more the stuff that Marshall Rosenburg says about non-coercion. http://www.cnvc.org/raisekds.htm