But unconditional parenting insists that the family ought to be a haven, a refuge, from such transactions. In particular, love from one's parents does not have to be paid for in any sense. It is purely and simply a gift. It is something to which all children are entit...

Few qualities are so important that we'd be willing to sacrifice everything else to achieve them. Maybe it's wiser to help children strike a balance between opposing pairs of qualities, so that they grow up to be self-reliant but also caring, or confiden...

There's a big difference, after all, between a child who does something because he or she believes it's the right thing to do and one who does it out of a sense of compulsion. Ensuring that children internalize our values isn't the same thing as helping them to develop th...

If we're not careful, this can become our primary goal. We may find ourselves joining all those people around us who prize docility in children and value short-term obedience above all.

I realized that this is what many people in our society seem to want most from children: not that they are caring or creative or curious, but simply that they are well behaved. A "good" child---from infancy to adolesence---is one who isn't too much troub...