Aren’t you a good girl?  

Praise and rewards vs unconditional parenting

By Amber, Mum to Megan 2y 3m

“You’ve done a wee wee in your potty! Good girl!” 

This kind of statement often slipped out in the first few weeks that we began to EC our daughter. I had a vague idea that I was offering ‘positive feedback’ and ‘encouragement’. But really I think I was just conditioned to say these things from my own upbringing. When I started to think more deeply about it, I wasn’t so sure how ‘positive’ it was after all.

If I tell baby Megan that she is good when she wees in the potty – what does that mean when she doesn’t? And what if she wees in her nappy? Is she bad? I started to wonder if that’s what my words implied.

I can’t pretend I thought all this up for myself. I read a book by Alfie Kohn: Unconditonal Parenting. I found it to be eye-opening. In a nutshell, Kohn argues that by praising good behaviour, parents send out a message that they only love their children conditionally, and that children need to behave in a certain way to earn that love. He also argues that rewards, including praise, hinder children from learning about the real value of an action. I then read another great parenting book: Letting Go as Children Grow by Deborah Jackson. Jackson illustrates how children naturally want to grow up social and be just like us, so there is no need for us to try to manipulate their behaviour at all.

So how does all this relate to EC? I’ve come to believe that manipulative praise to encourage ‘good behaviour’ has no place in a respectful, responsive EC relationship. I do use celebratory words and tone sometimes – but I try not to do this unless I can see that my daughter wants me to share in her success. For example, the first time my daughter climbed on the potty unaided, she looked pleased with herself so I exclaimed, “You did it yourself!”

I don’t want Megan to think that she needs to go on the potty to please me – I want her to do it for herself. I want her to do it because it keeps her clean and comfortable and because she is learning to emulate those around her. For me, EC is all about working with your baby, not trying to get them to do something that they wouldn’t choose themselves.

In days gone by, it was common practise to punish or scold babies when they had accidents. I’m sure that most parents would never dream of punishing a baby for a miss. But withholding a reward is a kind of punishment. At the very least it distinguishes between greater and lesser success at the potty.

So in our family we undertook to react to both catches and misses in a neutral way. We tried to stick to explanations: “It’s easier if you use the potty, because otherwise I have to wash your trousers”. It wasn’t always easy; especially if misses happened in bed in the middle of the night. And it hasn’t got easier. In fact it’s got harder as Megan has got older.

Now she is two and a bit, she can take herself to the potty and toilet independently (we haven’t had a poo miss for over a year.) However, she often holds onto her bladder for longer than she is able, leaks a bit, but then refuses to use the potty when prompted. I think that she is probably experimenting with holding her bladder. There’s also a bit of two-year-old will-assertion there too. And cutting molars doesn’t help. What I’ve come to understand is that the misses she has now aren’t really any different from those she had when she was a baby. Everyone makes mistakes when they are learning, and there is always a reason behind it. The problem with manipulation is that it doesn’t allow for that reason. It can be frustrating, because I think those misses are preventable. But she needs to test her own limits in her own way.

I remember having accidents as a child and being made to feel very ashamed about it. I suspect that this makes me inclined to be annoyed at misses. And now that Megan is older, my expectations have changed. We’ve gone through long periods of her being reliably dry, so I sometimes I find it hard to accept that she is having misses again. Occasionally I’ve displayed this annoyance at her wetting her pants (particularly if it’s on my clothes!) Ironically, the problem with this is that I might pass down that same shame that I felt.

No matter how old she is – a baby or a two year old, I don’t believe that I should try to manipulate her into using the potty with punishments or rewards. For us, I think that even explanations have had their day. It’s over to her now, and as parents, we just need to sit back and wait.