I guess that with the way I approach things it's not even a 'strategy'. It's a completely different way of thinking about children, their place in the world, their development, their potential, their unique gifts, what your own strengths and weaknesses are and how you want your children to be by the time they are teenagers. It tends to fly against the conventional way of thinking about children, and it certainly goes against the grain of time-outs and isolation tactics, and goes against reward-systems and planned consequences (as opposed to natural/logical consequences). It's in this way that it's harder - it's a hurdle to get over. Yes, it takes conscious thought about how you want to be with your kids and what you want the end result to be. And it's only 'harder' initially. When you work through the challenges to what we have been taught about 'discipline' up until the point we have our own children (who DIDN'T have ideas about how they would parent when it was their turn??) and get to the other side it's much easier to follow through because reactions responses become automatic and it's logical. It's stuff that enhances human relations, not just kid-wrangling Where in the adult world do we put people in time-out when they stuff up? Some people benefit from a self-imposed time-out when they're overloaded, and teaching children that if they're overwhelmed it's ok to take themselves away for a recharge is always a useful thing. Putting them there without that self-awareness is something else again.
This is all stuff I have thought extensively about since studying developmental psychology and trying to justify traditional 'discipline', only to find myself going completely the other way, just in time before DS was born (I was pregnant with him when doing that unit!). What I know about brain development, well-being outcomes and the implications of things that happen to our kids from birth till about 5-6 means I just cannot justify using anything other than understanding and compassion. Yes, I know we all have this, and what I'm talking about is using it quite overtly, instead of the old "I'm doing this because I love you", which is a contrary thing to present to a child, where they are feeling anything but accepted and understood. Love and compassion are things I believe I can't be efficient with and they can't be obscure. If I'm motivated by anything other than those two things then I tell my kids - I'm doing x because I'm in a hurry/it's cheaper/it's safer. How is that long-winded? How is an apology in terms they understand 'too much explanation'? As I said, I believe they are well-worth my effort. I'm gonna get stuff wrong, for sure. If I have reason to believe a method does more harm than good then I'm not going to use it. If I believe a method will help my kids expand their emotional development more than another method, I'll go with the one I think will serve them now and in the future much better than the other one.
Really, you do the best you can with the best information you have at the time. I believe in what I do because I believe it's the best way I can be with my kids, knowing what other methods are aiming for and how to do them, and what the risk of those methods are. I've weighed up a lot of information, because I was surrounded by a lot of conflicting chatter when my first was born. It took a HypnoBirthing practitioner to teach me to allow myself to 'be myself' with my kids, and not what anyone else expected me to be to get me on the road to parenting that I ultimately have chosen.
Because, ya know what? When I log off BB, when we close up for the night and tuck into my family (kinda not hard to do that at any time of the day, living on a farm!) I know that the only people I answer to are the little people I am responsible for. That goes for anyone else reading this - you ultimately answer to your children. It helps me to think about when they're in their 20s and asking me why I decided on the approach I took. What's your answer going to be? Will you be happy with it? Those two are purely rhetorical, by the way, and I won't entertain any discussion on your responses to those rhetorical questions - they are between you and your children
We're all learning, and always learning. I learn so much from my kids, and all kids are amazing in how they learn, how they adapt, how some survive dreadful experiences etc.
The fact that you guys have chosen methods to achieve an aim is great. I think you attribute a bit too much conscientiousness into the general population when you assert that ALL parents are doing the best for their kids. Because, believe me, they aren't ALL doing this - far from it. The BB population is not very representative at all. Many more parents than I'm comfortable even thinking about have no interest in changing past patterns or doing things differently from how their parents did them - they just don't have the skills, the emotional capacity and come from backgrounds that don't value children at all.
Thanks for the discussion, peeps!