Wow, over-generalizing, much?
Parenting styles differ, but nothing in my post (or that book), or in Celtic's posts, says that kids should never be punished or disciplined. Punishing also differs from parent to parent. I was never hit or spanked by my parents (oh wait - one time my mom slapped my hand, but she felt bad about it and apologized later), but they had other, stronger (at least in my case), forms of punishment... like embarrassment
Our parenting philosophy: let them make their mistakes - sometimes the outcome of making that mistake is punishment enough and they will learn all they need to from that. Sometimes you have to step in and punish them a little bit more, and *that's* what they will learn from.
But in the end, they're still gonna make that mistake no matter what you do or do not do - so all I'm saying is that being overprotective and overbearing and, frankly, disrespectful (making them drive cars with GPS reporting, telling kids they'll get kicked out of the house for doing drugs/alcohol even once, etc etc) can OFTENTIMES (not always) be less beneficial than being a little more lenient and understanding. Especially with the kicking out thing - if it comes to that, does any parent really want to kick their kid out? And if they don't follow through when the forbidden thing inevitably happens, then they'll know their parents are full of empty threats ('if that's a lie, what ELSE is a lie?') - it's a lose-lose situation when it comes to teenagers and ultimatums, unless you are fully prepared to follow through without backing down... which then leads to regrets and all of that horrible cycle that has put so many people in therapy over the years (be it the therapy of drinking too much, or the therapy of visiting a psychiatrist, or the many other forms of therapy in which the human race participates)!
In all of your instances (hot stove, sex, etc) I will do the same things as I will with alcohol/drugs - I will educate him... "Hey, don't touch that!! It's hot and will burn you!"... but that's not necessarily going to stop him from touching a hot stove in the future if he really wants to. And after that he'll never touch it again! Kids *will* always be kids (especially boys - yes, I know what I'm in for!) and parents have to turn their backs at some point, after teaching them as best they can about life. How else are they gonna learn anything for themselves? I was raised that way, as well as with a great respect for privacy... our doors were ALWAYS open (no closed doors in our house - by CHOICE not by some silly parental law), because our parents trusted us to respect their privacy and not bust in, and we trusted them to do the same.
Here's an anecdote from my own life that, ironically, while not an oven, has to do with something hot (I was about 5 at the time and keep in mind this was the very early 80s and they did weird stuff like put hot t-shirt presses up by the cash registers then
... in other words, before the rampant suing of companies for things that were not their fault got way out of hand):
Mom (sees me reaching for the t-shirt press, grabs my hands): "Don't touch that, it's really hot and it'll burn your skin right off!!"
Me (not knowing what 'being burned' really meant): "Okay."
5 minutes later we return to the cash register area to pay for my mom's purchases... meanwhile, I am still fascinated with the t-shirt press, and I don't really believe that it could be THAT hot... so I touch it very lightly with my thumb... it's THAT hot and I have a burned thumb with a huge bubbly blister for the next week... which also fascinated me when it burst one day
Is my mom a bad mom because of that? Not at all! Was the employee a bad employee because of that? Not at all - I was shorter than the counter and she couldn't see me inching up - plus she was doing her job ringing up a sale. Am I a bad kid because of that - maybe a little, but that's what kids do! Did my mom sue the store? No because she knew it was my fault not the store's. Did my mom yell and scream and spank me? No, believe me I learned my lesson without any yelling or punishment of any kind!!
Now, for another anecdote, holding hands and looking both ways while crossing the street is a MUST for kids under a certain age. Again, to avoid the screaming fits if your toddler doesn't want to hold your hand, educate! Obviously on this one you're not gonna let them make their own mistakes, but you can avoid a lot of headaches and fights by educating them on WHY they need to hold your hand, rather than just saying "because I say so" - which really just INVITES them to argue and throw tantrums! (also, in my experiences, simply adding the word 'please' works wonders, especially on polite toddlers who know how to say please and thank you... I may not have a grown child of my own yet, but I've done my part to help raise more than 6 different kids, from nannying to older-sistering.)
But you know what, after I grew out of the age that my mom was making (disguised as requesting) me hold hands when crossing the street, she also forbade me to ride my bike in the street until I was 10 years old. I understood the rule, and I understood WHY she had the rule, but I didn't always follow it to a T and she knew it (parents aren't dumb)... on any given day you could see me zigzagging in and out of the driveways just so I could 'dare' to ride in the street when my parents weren't looking, even if only for a second! I never put myself in danger, I always looked both ways and had the utmost respect for automobiles because of the way I was educated - and my parents knew this so let me get away with that little discretion without punishment or even bringing it up (at the time I thought I was totally getting away with it
).
You can compare that anecdote (something that can be super dangerous if done incorrectly - ie: riding your bike in the street) to drug and alcohol use in a responsible teenager who has been educated well. Just because they drink (or smoke pot) occasionally, doesn't make them irresponsible. Now, binge drinking and getting so wasted you forget what you did all night is a different story... my parent's trusted me not to do either, and if I ever had there would have been hell to pay and I would have learned from that mistake. But I was taught well and knew, even as a teenager, that it would be dumb and dangerous to do those things. Seeing my idiot friends do them was enough for me! Coming home slightly wasted was never enough for punishment in our household (cause for embarrassment and family stories, yes!)... but not coming home at all, or going to school wasted was a different story - I honestly have no idea what my parents would have done in those cases because, thanks to their awesome and respectful parenting, it never happened to me or any of my siblings.
I strongly believe that a lot of things these days are too 'baby proofed' to really teach kids lessons. Thus they get out on their own at 18 and go completely NUTS because they were sheltered and lived under so many arbitrary "because I said so" rules for so long. For instance, date rape, binge drinking and self-cutting are MAJOR problems in colleges these days - much more so than in even my college years, which weren't THAT long ago (I graduated in 2000). The book I cited goes more into the causes of that (overbearing 'hothouse' parenting, relationships not based on mutual respect) and doesn't ever say not to punish your kids! That would just be silly.
(Wow, long post! Thank goodness Dax now enjoys long afternoon naps
)
