I want to invite you to bring tenderness and tending to yourself as you explore this way of relating to children. Whether you are new to these ideas or have been walking this path for a while, the emotions they stir in us are worthy of compassion.
It’s also important to understand the wider cultural context… We need to surround ourselves with like-minded others with shared values grounded in a deeper understanding of the complexities of relationships and the need for safety, support and nurturing as we navigate our inner and outer worlds together. My wish for you is for you to find your tribe on this enormous journey.
I’m so excited to share my journey away from using rewards and punishments—not only in how I relate to my children but in how I engage with the world. My North Star is to bring curiosity to behaviour, putting on my ‘sparkly kids glasses’ so I can see through their lens, viewing their emotional landscape, the messy, beautiful, aching parts — knowing that nurturing is how we turn survival into safety, and safety into flourishing in today’s world. Normalising nurturing isn’t a parenting trend or a paradigm shift, it’s a return to what is essential for human wholeness, safety, and connection.
Before becoming a parent, I was a teacher for 17 years. In the classroom, I relied heavily on reward systems and, at times, punishments like time-outs. I even introduced a “Star of the Week” scheme at my last school to motivate students. But everything began to shift after my daughter was born and I was handed The Aware Baby by Dr. Aletha Solter. Her work opened my eyes to a completely different way of supporting children’s behaviour—one rooted in connection, compassion, and research.
It felt like a coming home. This wasn’t some radical new method—it was a return to what’s natural: nurturing. I eagerly devoured all of Dr. Solter’s books and discovered the work of Alfie Kohn, whose research on the negative impacts of rewards and punishments further deepened my resolve. Pam Leo’s insights also became a powerful influence in my parenting and professional life. Inspired and committed, I began my journey to becoming an Aware Parenting Instructor, determined to share this respectful, relationship-based approach with others.
You may wonder, But if rewards and punishments work, why change? And it’s true—they often “work” in the short term. But at what cost? Joss Goulden an Aware Parenting Instructor says, “the hidden cost of punishment and controlling our children is the negative impact it has on our relationship with our child.”
I recall a moment from a workshop I organised, led by Jurgen Peeters, an Aware Parenting Instructor from Belgium where a parent described a familiar situation: a family trip to IKEA. As I am sure many parents can relate, the outing was anything but smooth. Despite promising the children a treat and a toy from the children’s section, the kids struggled; tantrums, not listening, acting out. The parent asked Jurgen, “Should we still give them the reward we promised after all that behaviour?”
His response surprised them: Yes.
Alfie Khon says,“ what Rewards and punishments do is produce temporary compliance. They buy us obedience.”
There are three broad parenting styles: authoritarian (based on control through rewards and punishments), permissive (nagging, pleading and self-sacrificing), and a third—democratic and connected—which is the foundation of Aware Parenting and Connection Parenting and a return to normalising nurturing.
We are invited to shift our lens: instead of seeing behaviour as something to control, but to view it as communication. In Aware Parenting, Aletha Solter proposes that there are three main reasons children “misbehave”:
- They have an unmet need (yes, connection and attention are valid needs!)
- They lack information.
- They have an accumulation of stress or trauma that needs to be released—through crying, laughter, or raging—in a safe, supported way.
In the IKEA example, rather than focusing on punishment, withholding the agreed-upon treat, or offering even bigger rewards we might ask: What’s really going on here? Are the children hungry and need a break before shopping further? Do they need more information about the plan—how long it will take, when they’ll get to eat or choose something? Or are they simply carrying some big feelings that need space to be expressed?
When we respond to the why behind the behaviour, rather than reacting to the behaviour itself, we begin to see real, lasting shifts. Often, once the underlying need or emotion is met, the challenging behaviour softens or even disappears, and homeostasis is restored.
This is, I believe, the heart of parenting: meeting children with empathy, safety, and trust in their innate wholeness.
It might feel scary to react using a more democratic approach as it might feel we are encouraging the behaviour or we may worry our children won’t become ‘good’ people or they will continue to act in these ways around others or in school. Alfie Kohn explains, “if we are ultimately concerned with the kind of people our children will become, there are no shortcuts. Good values have to be grown from the inside out. Praise, privileges, and punishments can change behavior (for a while), but they cannot change the person who engages in the behavior-at least not in the way we want.”
The Hidden Cost of Rewards and Punishments
One of my biggest concerns with relying on rewards and punishments is that we risk missing something important our children are carrying. When we focus on controlling behaviour, rather than understanding it, children may suppress their emotions—sometimes deeply.
Recently, my 12-year-old daughter was behaving in ways that could easily have been labelled as “rude” or “disrespectful.” Parenting with curiosity doesn’t mean we allow children to hurt others or continue to speak to us aggressively—it simply invites us to look beneath the surface. The behaviour is communication.
That day, I stayed close, listened to her feelings, and set what Marion Rose calls “loving limits”, had some rough play and kept trying to connect with her. Later that evening, just as she was drifting off to sleep, she turned to me and said, “Mum, I think that was all my feelings coming out.”
She then told me about something that had happened earlier in the day—an event I had been aware of but hadn’t realised its emotional impact on her. Her nervous system had been flooded with fight-or-flight energy, and her behaviour was simply her way of discharging it so she could return to balance.
It was such a powerful reminder: when we slow down and listen, we give our children a chance to release what they’re holding, rather than bury it.
If We Don’t Use Rewards or Punishments—What Then?
Parents often ask me: If I can’t use rewards and punishments, what can I do?
Thankfully, the same three reasons children “act out” give us a simple yet profound roadmap:
- Meet their needs.
- Provide information.
- Be present and support them to release stress and trauma—through crying, raging, and laughter.
The Nonviolent Communication website (and its GROK the World relational games for families) offers a beautiful list of universal needs—just as relevant for children as for adults. Supporting children’s big emotions can be challenging if our own feelings were dismissed or punished growing up. That’s where a nervous system perspective becomes invaluable. As Bessel van der Kolk says:
“If the fight/flight/freeze response is successful and the person escapes the threat, they usually return to normal. However, when the threat is overwhelming, often it is stored in the body, and the body keeps the score.”
Listening to our children’s emotions, we can help them release stored stress and trauma, returning to their natural, balanced state. Pam Leo says, “The crying is the healing” and reminds us that, “there is a bright side to tantrums. Releasing the pain of emotional hurt clears the way for emotional connection. Once the child releases the pain, their delightful, natural nature returns—the child is usually calm, cheerful, affectionate, and cooperative.”
Alongside crying and raging, the most powerful tool I’ve found to support connection and cooperation is PLAY. Play not only strengthens our bond but also helps children release stored fight/flight/freeze energy. If a child is acting aggressively, inviting a pillow fight can allow them to express and release their fight energy—through connection. Lawrence Cohen’s book Playful Parenting and Aletha Solter’s book Attachment Play are full of wonderful ideas. Cohen beautifully says: “Play can be the long-sought bridge back to that deep emotional bond between parent and child.”
Parents often find themselves wondering how to get their children to do what’s needed — whether it’s tidying their room, doing homework, reading, or simply not leaving things scattered on the floor. But when we put on our ‘sparkly kid-glasses’ and approach the situation with curiosity and connection, using the three reasons mentioned above, children are much more likely to cooperate. Not only that, but we’re also supporting the development of their intrinsic motivation, rather than relying on rewards or punishments to ‘make’ them do things. Alfie Kohn says, “Intrinsic motivation is the fuel that enables learning to occur.”
You may also wonder how to implement this in a school setting, and I’d say with difficulty. However, it is certainly possible, and, in my experience, it relies firstly on the staff being willing reflect in these ways, higher children staff ratios and for staff to do the deeper work mentioned below.
Reparenting Ourselves
It can be difficult to offer this kind of support to our children if we ourselves weren’t met this way. I invite you to reflect on those same three reasons in relation to yourself:
- Do you have unmet needs?
- Are you lacking information about your child’s developmental stage?
- Are you carrying stress or trauma that needs to be released?
Robin Grille, author of Inner Child Journeys, writes:
“Understanding our history can free us from it—and in turn free our children from it. Denial and the avoidance of our history place us at risk of reliving it, repeating it, and passing it on.”
It can be helpful to reflect in your own childhood. Were you were punished as a child can you recall a specific incident? How did it make you feel? Did you receive rewards? How did it make you feel? Even praise like ‘good’ is a reward and can lead to perfectionism and people-pleasing.
So, I want to invite you to bring tenderness and tending to yourself as you explore this way of relating to children. Whether you are new to these ideas or have been walking this path for a while, the emotions they stir in us are worthy of compassion.
It’s also important to understand the wider cultural context. We live in societies built on control-based systems. As Michael Sandel explores in The Moral Limits of Markets, and says “It isn’t easy to teach students to be citizens, capable of thinking critically about the world around them, when so much of childhood consists of basic training for a consumer society.”
We need to surround ourselves with like-minded others with shared values grounded in a deeper understanding of the complexities of relationships and the need for safety, support and nurturing as we navigate our inner and outer worlds together. My wish for you is for you to find your tribe on this enormous journey.
Janusz Korczak deepens my resolve with these words, “Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be – The unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future.” With us guiding them on their way and normalising nurturing to all we meet on our paths. And as Aletha Solter says. “Don’t forget to appreciate yourself for all the wonderful things you do for your children and all the love and attention you give them, even though you may feel inadequate at times. You are probably doing much more than you think!”