Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children

If I offered you a thousand dollars to take off your shoes, you'd very likely accept--and then I could triumphantly announce that 'rewards work.' But as with punishments, they can never help someone develop a *commitment* to a task or action, a reason to keep doing it when there's no longer a payoff.

It's not just that humiliating people, of any age, is a nasty and disrespectful way of treating them. It's that humiliation, like other forms of punishment, is counterproducti ve. 'Doing to' strategies - as opposed to those that might be described as 'working with' - can never achieve any result beyond temporary compliance, and it does so at a disturbing cost.

If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.

Being a team player should not imply a demand for simple obedience and conformity.

Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children

You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don't want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.