@Joe – Thanks for the comments. I suspect you're likely right about them being fairly universal reasons for homeschooling, but it's neat to hear that others share them anyway!

No, we haven't yet decided exactly how we're going to go about it. I expect that we'll be fairly "unschooling" and relaxed in the early years, focusing more on real-life experience and self-directed learning than bookwork, but slowly building in more and more structure with each year. There are so many curriculums to choose from, it's overwhelming! I like various bits and pieces from each of the major homeschooling "methods", so I won't be surprised if we end up with a fairly eclectic approach ourselves. Then again, that ability to tailor our home-education to our families specific needs and characteristics is one of the draws to homeschooling in the first place!

*BluePixo Entertainment – A place for mom and dad to share topics about parenthood*

I think it does require a fair bit of observance on the parent's part. Recognizing that a child is becoming praise-dependent – doing things for the praise rather than just for the sake of doing them – shows us that we need to reconsider how we go about praising them. Maybe we need to be more specific, maybe we need to reflect back to them ("how do you feel about your drawing/that choice/those results?"), maybe we need to scale things back a bit (not praising over every tiny little thing they do).

Rewards are clearer in my mind – just like punishment, they instill wrong motives and teach our child to do the "right thing" in order that they may get the reward rather than sincerely making good decisions for the sake of the outcome itself. (Chores should be done in order to help the family, not to get an allowance; good choices should be made because they are the right thing to do, not because they will be rewarded with a new toy; etc.) Praise really depends more on the intent, I think. Withholding attention until they do something "right", and then heaping on the "positive attention", is the very definition of behaviour modification, just as punishment is. Expressing our sincere happiness over our child's growth isn't the same thing.

Anyway, I too am looking forward to exploring the issue of praise further! It is still a bit fuzzy in my mind, but writing it out always helps me to clear everything up in there and to refocus my own heart. Thanks for your feedback, Erika.

@Reece – I'm always amazed at how similar our situations are!

No, Isaac was not always on board with the idea of non-punitive parenting. Before we had children, we both agreed that spankings and other punishments were the best way to raise children. It wasn't until our own child was born that our hearts softened and we began to reconsider our pre-parenthood assumptions.

I find that Isaac really takes his parenting cues from me. If I have a bad day and start treating our son harshly, I always notice that he immediately begins to follow suit. It's like having a mirror held up to you – I don't always like what I see, which gives me the opportunity to step back, calm down, and refocus so that I can better deal with our son.

Isaac is also a very logical person, so our parenting conversations tend to be quite short and sweet. When Jacob was much younger, for example, he began trying to hit our faces. Isaac asked me if we should start slapping his hand to make him stop hitting us. I suggested that maybe it didn't make sense to hit him in order to teach him not to hit. Isaac considered this, saw the logic, and agreed. From then on, we would instead catch his hand mid-swing, bring it to our face, and have him stroke our cheek while we said "gentle". Showing him a positive alternative was immediately effective (the attempted hitting was gone within a couple days, replaced by the sweetest little hand stroking our cheeks all the time) and far more logical than slapping his hand for something that at the time he didn't even know was wrong. He was just being the silly baby he's always been.

Most of our conversations have been similarly brief and to-the-point. We both recognize that behaviour modification may change his outward behaviour, but it won't teach him anything in the long run. And, again, Isaac tends to pick up on my attitude towards Jacob, so as long as I am treating him with grace and avoiding punitive parenting, so does he.

Having been raised in a very punitive home myself, I can completely relate to what you said about struggling against falling into that punitive mindset. Oddly enough, those exact two examples you gave were ones I was fighting against myself this week, the temptation to just send Jacob to his room or to badger him to stop crying. It was recognizing that struggle that got me to finally get around to writing this entry – to remind and refocus myself as much as to share with others. It is a constant battle against my flesh to avoid that mindset that comes so easily because of how I myself was raised.

Being aware of my own reasons behind the temptation helps me to deal with the situation more effectively. For me, I'm often tired and just want a few minutes of quiet after a long day, so I find myself much more impatient with any whining, crying, or even just plain happy excited behaviour. Recognizing that it is myself, and not him, that is the "problem" enables me to step back and calm down. Instead of sending him to his room, I can give him the option to calm down while sitting on my knee or to calm down on his bed – his choice. Instead of pestering him to stop whining or crying, I can get down on his level and properly deal with the upset. I can remember to soothe his tears rather than order them away.

Heh, and now this comment is too long to post! I'll address the praise issue in a second comment.