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C00004 00004	I read Chaim Ginott's book, "Between Parent and Child" and I found it
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Critique of

Chaim Ginott's "↓_Between Parent and Child_↓"




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Merle E. Lenat




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Psychology of Family and Youth
Mary Ann Smith
May 27, 1975
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I read Chaim Ginott's book, "Between Parent and Child" and I found it
⊗4very⊗* similar to Dreikur's, "Children, the Challenge".  However,
I enjoyed them both very much because they both dealt with raising
children with self respect and respect of the child as an individual.
It meant a great deal to me to read that one can raise a child effectively
without screaming and punishing and being angry and resentful all the time.
Ginott's theory is raise a child with respect and he will learn to respect
you and others.  It is a value he will pick up from you, the parent.
I only hope that when I do have children I can carry out this plan as 
easily as it sounds in "Between Parent and Child".

Ginott talks about having a new mode of communication based on respect of 
the child and on skill.  He says that the parent should show ⊗4understanding
and respect⊗* ↓_first_↓ and then give instruction or advice.  This is essentially
what Dreikurs says as well when he talks about having respect for the child.
P.E.T. theory stresses active listening which conveys understanding and 
interest to the child.  Virginia Satir talks about validation as her means
of showing respect, love, and interest via communication.  Ginott continues
along this vain by saying that our responses -- words and feelings -- have
a decided effect on the atmosphere of the home and on the child.  Dreikurs
agrees and he talks about this as one of the three factors in the child's 
development that affect his personality.  Part of Ginott's new mode of
communication is during conversation to always be narrowing down from
the general to the specific, from the event to the relationship and feelings.
All feelings are legitimate, he goes on to say, and as parents we should
try to identify the feelings of the child and accept them no matter how
much we dislike them.  This is basically the whole theory of P.E.T. --
identification and acceptance of feelings which leads to understanding and
love and respect.

Along with communication messages Ginott talks of praising and critizing.
He feels as does Dreikurs that the parent should praise the behavior and
accomplishment and not the child or his personality.  Along with this, the
parent can let the child know that you appreciate the effort.  With 
criticism, again the parent should not criticize the child, but only the 
behavior or event.  To critisize constructively the parent should set up
a learning situation and point out to the child what has to be done.
Dreikurs feels that half the job of encouraging lies in separating the
deed --good or bad--from the doer.  P.E.T. differs here slightly since
Gordon feels it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to separate child
from misbehavior since whether the child feels accepted or not as a person
is determined by how many of his behaviors are accepted or not by adults.
Skinner, on the other hand, feels that to increase desirable behaviors one 
should reinforce these behaviors and ignore undesirable ones so they will
eventually disappear.

Continuing with the main theme of communication with respect Ginott talks
of when the parent continually calls the child a name, eg. stupid, the 
child starts believing it and the child gives up his intellectual efforts
feeling that his escape from ridicule lies in avoiding competition.
Dreikurs delves deeply in this issue when talking about the discouraged
child.  Dreikurs would put the example of the above as the most discouraged
child in his chart or continuum of encouraged to discouraged children.
Ginott goes on to say that it is important to display anger in front of the
child or to the child since it is a real emotion.  However, it should not
come out as an attack of the child or disrespect of him.  Anger should be
understood as limits to parents tolerance.  It should bring relief to the 
parent, insight to the child, and have no harmful side effects to either
of them.  It should be a learning situation for the child; parents
should identify emotion and express increasing intensity and give reason
for it and state wishful actions so anger could be reduced.  P.E.T. 
feels that it is important to let children know where you are at emotionally
so they won't be puzzled and they can confide in you more easily.  Also 
it is important for children to know what anger, or any emotion, is so when
they feel it it won't be so scary for them.

Ginott also talked in great detail about self defeating patterns of communication
parents have.  These include (1)threats which come out to sound like a
challenge or an expectation to the child (2)bribes which leads only to 
temporary submission as Skinner believes (3)promises that emphasizes that
parent meant what he said leads to kids wondering if unpromised word is
trustworthy (4)sarcasm which is a block to direct communication and comes
out sounding like an attack and invites counterattack (5)not allowing child
to tell the truth especially about his feelings because you do not want to
hear it teaches lying to the child as a way of self defense (6) when kids 
steal do not dramatize or call kids names but try to make it a learning
situation and, Dreikurs believes in, let kids learn through suffering the
consequenses of their acts. What I feel he is really saying is use direct
communication to achieve the most understanding and respect.  Also I agree
that no matter how bad the behavior the child did was that to allow the
child to learn through the consequenses of his acts is doing a great service
to the child and is encouraging rather than discouraging him through lectures
and namecalling and showing lack of respect.

Ginott feels that the child can develop responsibility through absorbing 
the values at home.  The parent is a model as the social learning theorists
believe and what they model most are values.  Dreikurs also believes this.
Responsibility in kids starts with parents attitudes and skill as was stated
before.  The attitudes include a willingness to allow kids to be people and
to feel all their feelings.  The skill includes an ability to demonstrate to the 
child acceptable ways of coping with feelings as P.E.T. believes and
their theory is to instruct people to do this.  Dreikurs feels that to
teach responsility is to demonstrate encouragement to the child and he is 
all for that.  I agree.
Ginott believes that responsibity is fostered  by allowing the child to 
have a voice and a choice in matters that affect him.  In other words, 
encourage the child by allowing him the chance to prove his worth.  Some
examples discussed were choice in clothes, food, and what to do with 
allowance.  Parents can select the situations and children can be allowed
to make choices and feel encouraged.
Along with this idea Ginott talks about how we discourage our children by
doing things for them that they can and should do for themselves such as
homework.  Discouraged kids get upset because they are unable to live up
to their parents expectation of them and eventually they stop trying.  When
the child is allowed to experience himself as an individual with his own needs
and goals he begins to assume responsibility for his own life and its demands.

Ginott talks about the power struggle between parent and child and how
parents can rise above the stuggle through listening with sensitivity and
interest.  This conveys the child's importance to the parent and gives 
the child a feeling that he is respected and valued.  This feeling of 
personal worth as Virgina Satir puts it, enables a child to deal more
effectively with other people which is a major goal according to Dreikurs.
Dreikurs also deals with the power struggle saying that it is one of the
mistaken goals children have --power equals value.  The power struggle
develops according to Dreikurs when each attempts to show each other who
is boss and to get out of it means that the parent should give up his stake
in winning and not play the game anymore.  Both Dreikurs and Ginott agree
that in a power struggle child will resent parent and retaliate endlessly
so the way to get out of it is to rise above it.

Ginott talks about how childraising has changed since grandfather's time.
This, of course, is a very basic idea to Dreikurs' theory that now we
are in a democratic social structure and our childraising should now be 
that way too and not autocratic as it was in the past where parents had
all the power and children had none.  Children are not accepting that 
kind of treatment from parents today.  Ginott says also that grandfather
ruled with iron hand whether right or wrong but today parents are in a 
transition period and they are hesitant as to how to raise children.  Ginott
agrees with Satir that those who need children to justify their marriage or
their life are at a disadvantage in raising kids since they hand over control
to kids because they are afraid of losing the child's love.  What they don't
realize is that overpermissiveness brings anxiety and increasing demands
for privileges that cannot be granted.  In T.A. terms a person  needs to 
have a parent giving them messages so they can develop their own "parent" and
"adult" responsibly.

Ginott goes on to talk about setting limits as responsible parents.  He stresses
that limits should be set on acts or behaviors and not on feelings or wishes.
Limits should be set in a manner that preserves self respect of parent and
child.  Limits should not be capricious or arbitrary but educational and
character building he feels.  Limits should be stated clearly so child
understands what constitutes unacceptable behavior and what substitute
is acceptable.  One communication message, in other words, should be sent 
to child.  Satir agrees and says that if verbal and nonverbal messages are
congruent the communication is understood better.
The limit, therefore, should be stated firmly without insult or disrespect
to child's self respect.  The parent should be careful, he warns, not to
initiate power struggle.  He also talks about what to do when the child
exceeds the limits -- parent should not increase anxiety through lecturing
which shows weakness but to convey strength so parent can ally with  child
to help child control his impulses without losing face.  Dreikurs also deals
with limit setting in the same way.  That is, he feels it is a parents job
to set limits so as not to create anxiety for the child who needs to know
what is acceptable and unacceptable.

Ginott deals a little bit with punishment such as spanking and agrees with
Dreikurs and Skinner that it will only temporarily enforce submission from
child.  However, it does serve to release tension from the parent but at 
the same time models to the child that when angry - hit!

Sibling Rivalry is a topic that was also discussed in depth in Ginott's
book as well as in Dreikurs' book.  He says that the parent should recognize
that a newborn baby is a crisis time for the first born.  The parents
should communicate to the first born that he is still loved but that 
the new baby does require a lot of extra attention.Dreikurs would say
that the parent should be careful to correct the mistaken goal of the child
that attention equals love.  Ginott tells parents to warn children  while
they are pregnant of how it will be so it won't be such a shock for the 
child when the baby arrives.  Active listening could be used here effectively
I think.    Once again Ginott and Dreikurs agree that sibling rivalry affects
a child's life in such a way that it may indelibly stamp his personality
and distort his character.  It can manifest itself in competitiveness or
in avoidance of it, in pushy popularity or in wallflower meekness, in
reckless generosity or in ruthless greed, for example.  As parents we have
to accept the rivalry and see that it does not become destructive.  Ginott
believes this can be done by conveying to each child the uniqueness of his
relationship to the parents and not the sameness to the others in the family.

Some other issues that Ginott deals with that I will just mention include
common anxieties all children have such as those of abandonment, guilt, 
death, denial of autonomy and status, separation,and friction between
parents.  He feels these can be dealt with by using the communication
techniques mentioned above and by demonstrating respect and acceptance.
As I said before, communication seems to be the key to developing and
keeping a good working relationship with others and especially our kids.
Through communication such as active listening we are showing validation, 
caring, and acceptance.  This is what the book meant to me.