How "catch them being good" is a myth

More often than not, the parenting strategy of “catching them being good” is a way to use approval and disapproval, and disguise it with a smile. There is no explicit approval, “I like when you ___” without implicit disapproval of the opposite choice, “I don't like when you ___.” All children know this. It’s like showing children one side of a coin and pretending there isn’t another. 

Let’s consider the effects of approval and disapproval as a way of raising and shaping our children. When approval is the motivator, conformity is what it encourages. On the other hand, some children are more motivated by power than approval, and will choose defiance over conformity. But these defiant children are no less free than the conforming child (take it from someone whose initial reaction to most everything was defiance for most of his life).

Neither defiant nor conforming children have developed a connection with their own independent feelings or consequently the world. Neither is proactive. One is conforming, one is reactive. 

Our job as parents is to help children to develop their own independent relationship with the world. Their wants, their relationships, their feelings and the feelings of others. 

The Raising Lions method helps conforming children become autonomous, independent thinkers, and helps defiant children become autonomous independent thinkers. All the while, developing a sense of mutual recognition as the foundation of connection and mental health.