How to raise moral children

Why praising character works more than praising behavior

According to this article in the New York Times, praising kids character traits encourages them to live up to the ideals of those character traits. Praising the behavior does not. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/opinion/sunday/raising-a-moral-child.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=OP_RaM_20140413&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=5

So – if a kid doesn't cheat on a test – saying, thank you for not cheating, won’t have much of an impact. Saying, wow – you’re so honest – I like that about you does.

It gives a kid something to strive for. A goal to be reached. It provides a sense of identity. And don’t we all need that? 

On any given day my behavior may or may not reach up to the ideal I set for myself. The point is, that I have an ideal I've set for myself. And that ideal is a value, not a particular behavior. 

It’s the value that determines my character and whether I am moral or not. If I tried to be moral by defining each specific behavior that I consider to be good, I would have an endless task. The permutation of possible behaviors is endless. Which is why I think religions that have rules of behavior fail to create moral people.

As a Humanist, my goal is to be the best most ethical human I can be. This is a moral ideal. It doesn't tell me what sort of sex is moral and what isn't. It doesn't tell me what food I can eat or not eat.  Instead, it encourages me to think about my behavior in each situation I find myself in to figure out what a good ethical person would do. And then, do that to the best of my ability.

Since reading this article, I have become aware of how I discuss moral behavior with my son. And I try to make a conscious effort to talk about the sort of person he wants to be instead of just praising him for certain behaviors.  I've noticed when I discuss his moral character; he does light up and become excited. The idea of being a good person resonates with him in a way that – doing your homework does not.

Your exercise for the week, is to remind yourself about your ethical character. And if you are parent, to try and integrate ethical character praise to your child this week and see how your child responds. Good luck. 

The Power of Negative Attention

What to do when someone is acting badly to get your attention

If you have a child, you know that when you ignore them, like say – you are on an important telephone call, your child will try politely to get your attention and then turn to ever more drastic measures to get your attention. this is the power of negative attention.

The same thing happens with animals. Most of the time when someone comes to me with an animal behavior problem or a child behavior problem, they don’t realize that they have been positively reinforcing the negative behavior they don’t want. They don’t realize that they themselves are the problem, not their child or animal

If you want to encourage good behavior, you have to catch the animal, or your child, doing something good in the moment and reward them for the good thing they just did. the more you do this, the better their behavior comes.

If you ignore them except when they are bad, you perpetuate the bad behavior. Why? Because even negative attention is better than being ignored!

Check out this article from Counselling Resources on The Power of Negative Attention:
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2010/12/07/the-power-of-negative-attention/ 

You will notice the author, Gordon Shippey, talks about the same operant conditioning dynamics I teach in my bullying book and in my humanistic parenting and management programs. He talks about extinction bursts and “ignoring” problem behavior.

But he also brings up a really important point, which is that completing the extinction protocol is REALLY hard to do. It’s much easier to train up the good behavior you want and reward the positive behavior you do want than to extinguish the bad behavior you don’t want. Both require you to control your own behavior and responses so that you can catch people being good so that you can reward them.

Don’t underestimate how much behavior, good and bad, is done just to get attention. If you want to encourage positive attention seeking behavior, you have to become more responsive to your child’s attempts to get your attention and reward them with your attention instead of forcing them to become little monsters before you give them your time.

Be present. You and your child will be happier.

Positive Parenting vs. Humanistic Parenting

Is there a difference between humanistic parenting and positive parenting? Do the differences matter?

To answer these questions, we have to first understand what positive parenting is and how it might contrast with Humanist or Humanistic parenting is. So what is positive parenting? Positive parenting is a parenting style also known as positive discipline. This all has to do with child behavior and how to discipline children effectively so that we raise well behaved adults who embody the values we care about as parents.

It turns out there are a lot of different parenting styles and positive parenting is a reaction against the forms of parenting that use negative discipline or punishment. How to discipline a child is an ongoing discussion for most parents. I know I get asked a lot of questions about it. Now, as a Humanist parent, I do engage in positive parenting or positive discipline. Why? Because it works. Humanism is ultimately a very pragmatic philosophy. We want to do what works.

Here’s why, and if you’ve read my book The Bully Vaccine, you already know this. Psychologists have studied human learning and how best to cause learning and it turns out that punishment is incredibly counterproductive to learning. In fact: if a child or any animal is doing something you don’t want them to do, punishing them isn’t going to get them to stop. Negative reinforcement is still reinforcement. It turns out that if you want them to stop, you have to remove reinforcements entirely, which is why positive parents use time outs and natural and logical consequences to discourage their children from behaving in a way that is not ok. So yes, according to what we know about these matters, The positive parenting style is a good style.

So how does this contrast with Humanistic Parenting? Well, it doesn’t much. Really, it just as matter of why we approach parenting the way we do. A Humanist approaches the question of how to parent compassionately, respectfully, responsibly and with an eye towards raising ethical, compassionate responsible adults. We start with the assumption that the child is an autonomous human being. They are responsible for choosing their behavior, just like we all are. Our job as parents is to help teach them how to make good decisions for themselves. We still have to discipline and encourage our child to behave better, the issue is how.

Most Humanists seem to prefer an authoritative parenting style. (See: http://psychology.about.com/od/childcare/f/authoritative-parenting.htm for more information) To me, positive parenting addresses only the question of how to discipline a child. Humanist and authoritative parenting goes beyond that into also addressing how to get a child to think for themselves to choose good behavior on their own.

Because they don't rely on negative discipline or punishment, positive parenting classes and programs focus on alternative ways to gain child compliance with the needs of the adults and fellow family members. So negotiation, discussion, active engagement of the child in problem solving, natural consequences, removal of rewards and more are all part of the alternatives used. Most Humanist parents use all those tools and more. I think the only real difference is that a Humanist parent is going to prefer those methods that most encourage autonomy and the ability to think independently.


So to answer the question, is there a difference? Yes and no. Positive parenting is just one of the many tools a Humanist parent uses. We are as concerned with raising good thinkers and ethically compassionate kids as we are with raising well behaved kids and our parenting style reflects that emphasis.
What do you think of positive parenting? What parenting style do you prefer?