[Rapunzel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/health/15mind.html

Maybe it's easier said than done. I know it is. Research is showing that withholding love and approval when children don't act the way that we want them to causes problems. Like we didn't already know that, I know, but somtimes we need to stop and look at what we are doing. And how do we accomplish effective parenting without using love and approval as reinforcers?

[Rhapsody]

I totally agree.... Unconditional Acceptance with added Love is needed more than ever.

[theotterone]

This is something that I struggle with my husband with. His parents are both on their 3rd marriages (his dad keeps threatening to leave his step-mom) and his younger sister is on her second marriage. He has abandonment issues with both parents. He doesn't "get" unconditional love. When he is angry at me, he hates me in that moment. In that moment, there is no love. It's sad. When things get hard, it's his first instinct to bolt. I don't ask how he feels about our girls when he is angry, but he says things in anger (I wish you weren't here) that upset ME when I hear them directed at the kids. He's working on it, so I have to give him credit there.

By comparison, my parents have been married 39 years. While I hit puberty at the same time my mom hit menopause and world war three hit our house, I never questioned that she loved me. She told me "you could become a serial killer and I would still love you, you are MY child!". Now we are best friends and I talk to her nearly every day. She may have not liked my behavior or liked me at that time, but her love never diminished.

I tell him that I love him even when I am at my angriest with him. I may not like him right then, but I love him none the less. I understand that a lot of it is the product of his childhood.

Bravo for finding this and sharing it!

[Rapunzel]

The article refers to people going to therapy as adults to get the uncondiitonal love that they never received from parents and teachers as children. It's not quite the same, but I'm not sure it would even be possible to learn to give unconditional love without having received it, or even learned how to receive it.

Lots of people might say their parents raised them this way (with anger and punitiveness), and "I turned out ok." But did they, really?

[theotterone]

I don't know, I had it, and I'm "nuts"...

Then again, compared to most, my family puts the "fun" in Dysfunctional...