Chapter Seven: UCP & non-judgment
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Chapter 7
Unconditional Positive Regard & Non-judgment
Why UCP?
The ability of our children and young people to make consensual decisions and be in consent-based relationship with us is heavily reliant on our ability to show Unconditional Positive Regard (UCP). Not only for us to practice it, but even more importantly, for them to feel it.
In her book All about love, bell hooks speaks of the way parental love often presents a skewed picture of what love actually is. We often present our actions as loving, when they are experienced as coercive to our child. hooks writes that love is a verb, it is something we do; and it is experienced by others through our actions, not our words.
Along similar lines, Alfie Kohn, author of Unconditional Parenting, shifts the focus from what we do, to how our children feel about what we do; he emphasizes the importance of our children feeling unconditionally loved, over us believing we are unconditionally loving them.
What is UCP?
UCP is part of this. It is the antidote to judgement and shame. It is one of the ways we break down the power differential between ourselves and our child, and between adults and children; and it’s one of the ways we stand by young people and unconditionally support them. It is a way to relate with our child without shame, and with radical acceptance of who they are.
The term was coined by the psychologist Carl Rogers, and it’s a simple but powerful way to frame how we look upon our children: unconditionally worthy of love and belonging. We assume they are always doing their best, that the way they show up and the person they are, are inherently worthy of our care and respect.
In the words of Ross W. Greene, we understand that “kids do well if they can,” which contrasts with our prevailing mentality that children do well if they want to (or are made to by adults), and all they need to do is try harder. All behavior is then seen as communication: our child is telling us there is an expectation they are having trouble meeting.
Seeing our children through this lens means we step away from shame and blame, and see their behavior as separate to who our children are as people. We view ourselves and our children as good people who sometimes struggle.
It’s crucial for consent
This is a crucial part of consent-based relationships: that our child can make choices without fear of repercussions of any kind, whether physical, emotional, psychological, or any other form of retaliation, no matter how subtle and invisible, because their parent or the adult in the space will always assume the best of them, will love them no matter what. They have nothing to prove – they are worthy of love and belonging, just as they are.
That is what the “unconditional” part does: it frees our children to be who they are, and do what they do, without fear that it will somehow alter the way we feel about them and our ideas of who we thought they were.
I realised at one point that my daughter was choosing things, apparently enthusiastically, because she knew the choice would please me. This wasn’t always super apparent, and perhaps it wasn’t even conscious on her part. But the pressure of having to hold up an image of herself, or the fear of being thought less of or even feeling like she was less worthy – is real in our young people.
I remember feeling this as a child and teenager, and perhaps you do too.
And this is why I will always believe authentic consent to be so crucial: I want my children to make conscious, aware, enthusiastic choices (I’ll go deeper into what authentic or enthusiastic consent looks like later on!). I want this because I work hard on not controlling or coercing them, even in small subtle ways. I want this because I’ve seen how being made to do things we haven’t truly consented to, can lead to resentment and anger.
I’m concerned that repeatedly making choices from a place of inauthenticity or fear, may cause us to lose a sense of who we are, what we need, and how we want to be in the world. And aren’t those things the very reasons why we choose consent over coercion in the first place?
They are always doing their best
Assuming that my child is always, always doing the best he can with the tools he has in that moment, has been an amazing reframe.
Assuming that when things go downhill it’s because he can’t, not because he won’t, has changed everything.
And much of the time it reflects the truth. When children can, they do better.
Practicing Unconditional Positive Regard with our young people means we always work on the assumption that what they are doing is their best. That we always seek the most benign interpretation of their intentions, words and actions. That we work to look upon them with the same steady, unwavering love, no matter what.
UCP contributes to a culture where they feel truly empowered to make free choices because they know deep down, that their decisions are not a reflection of who they are. They know that no matter what they do, it won’t change the way we feel about them or regard them.
UCP is freeing – and consent needs that freedom to thrive.
What about us though?
Are we always doing our best, even when we shout? When we lose the car keys, is it because we were unable to keep track of them at that time, or because we are sloppy or lazy? When our home is a tip, are we failing? When we are impatient and short, is this really the best we can do?
I know now that Unconditional Positive Regard begins with us. It begins with attunement to self, and other elements of being in a consent-based relationship with ourselves. It begins with always working on the assumption that yes, we too are doing the best we can. That while our actions are morally neutral, we are good people. That when we are able to, we will do well.
A huge shift for me was recognizing this about my own parents. For years I felt anger around the ways I was parented and blamed them for a lot more than they were responsible for. Now I know that actually, they really were doing their best. I have a lot more compassion around the kinds of childhoods they had, and how inevitably they brought some of that to our relationship. I have so much empathy for the cycles that they themselves broke, sometimes in quite radical ways. I have a greater understanding of my own divergent brain and that it, too, was doing its best while also existing in a space that was not recognizing or affirming it. Not because my parents didn’t want to, but because they were doing the best they were able to do.
I have a much more expansive view of the relationship between parent and child not being a one-way street, but a constant feedback loop. I influenced my parents’ behavior towards me too - unconsciously of course, but we know from studies and lived experience that there is a feedback loop between baby and caregiver, that begins at birth and continues. It is never a one-way relationship, even though the parents and adults hold much (if not all) the power and responsibility in terms of how they ultimately care for their child. We are all connected and that human interactions don’t happen in isolation.
Looking upon ourselves with UCP can look like accepting ourselves for who we are, or telling ourselves we have value, just for being ourselves. It can be a powerful antidote to perfectionism and shame, which if I’m honest, have been two of my most toxic parenting traits!
I aim for done over good, is practically etched into my brain. It is how I managed to open a word document and start writing. It is how, as a recovering perfectionist and current anti-perfectionist, I even manage to get out of bed in the morning! I just need to get it done. And also, sometimes I don’t get it done and that’s okay too. Doing some of it is better than doing none of it!
Just be perfect, or else.
Perfectionism is often a neurodivergent trait, but it’s also, if we’re honest, a people-living-in-this-world trait, a result of domination through patriarcy, colonialism and capitalism. I see this in myself and in my children. It is certainly stoked by schooling culture, where you are punished for mistakes and are also making those mistakes in a very public manner, reinforcing our sense of never wanting to make a mistake again!
Celebrating our mistakes is one way we have worked as a family to banish perfectionism from our lives. One year, we made a 1000 Mistakes Chart, as a cheeky counter-chart to the ubiquitous 1000 Hours Outside charts (that were frankly, unattainable for us, among other issues I may have had with them!). We hung it up on our wall and coloured in a square every time one of us made a mistake. For transparency, we totally ended up forgetting all about it after a month or so, and it remained un-coloured and ignored on the wall for quite some time. A silent ode to our anti-perfectionism, I suppose.
My children know that mistakes are how you learn, and perfectionism is how you stay exactly where you are. Where we are is neither good or bad, but much like fear, it gets boring after a while. We want expansion and change and wonder and joy.
None of that happens if fear and perfectionism are driving.
Looking upon ourselves and our children with Unconditional Positive Regard means we can be less than perfect, we can mess up and stumble and fall short of expectations (or even not have any expectations!) and we will still be unconditionally loved. We will still be worthy.
Non-judging
I recently read Emily Nagoski’s description of non-judging and loved it, so I will use it here: “Non-judging is turning toward what’s true, with kindness.” Basically, non-judging is looking at the reality of what you feel, are, or do, and showing yourself compassion rather than criticism, shame or condemnation.
How is this relevant to consent? And how is it different to UCP?
UCP is “I love my child (and myself) for who they are, no matter what,” and non-judging is “I look upon what my child says and does (or what I say and do), with kindness rather than judgment.”
UCP is about the texture of who we are regardless of what we do: are we fundamentally good? Are we always doing the best we can? Are we worthy just for being ourselves? Yes, we are all three of those. Non-judging is about looking at what is real: about what we think, say and do, and how we show up in the world, with kindness (even if our first reaction might be criticism, judgment, shame).
Do you judge?
Okay – before you’re like, Oh no, I judge! It’s okay, we all do. Judging is normal, to an extent. Our brains are programmed to categorise, sort, come to conclusions about what we encounter.
The thing is – there is a difference between noticing what comes up, and making an immediate judgment about what comes up.
Non-judgment is noticing what comes up, and staying with it. My friend, wellness coach and founder of The Nurtured Life Sherene Cauley explains it like this: “Judgments (especially premature judgments) can stifle our compassion. Judgments can make us feel as if we are “experts” when in reality being judgmental can limit the options and opportunities that are available. A judgmental nature can make it hard to feel at peace.”
In his book, Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn identifies the qualities we can work on to support non-judgment: patience, beginner’s mind, trust, non-striving, acceptance, letting go, gratitude, generosity and compassion. Sherene Cauley coaches people on how to sit with these qualities in the pursuit of non-judgment.
I judged
For decades, I judged. Perhaps not openly and vocally, but I judged. Not in an open, curious way – but in a sudden, immediate way. In a way that closed me off from getting curious, that led me to feel like I knew best. I judged myself, above all. I was never good enough, tidy enough, healthy enough, all of the things. Never. Enough.
Seven years into parenting my daughter, I recognized I was doing the same to her. I cannot imagine how this must have felt: to grow up with a mother who was not able to look upon her child’s actions and behaviours with curiosity and compassion, or even with neutrality. A mother who noticed, and made value judgments. A mother who attributed a moral value to the tiniest of things. Not openly and vocally often – but children are perceptive. Often the things we leave unsaid are the ones they pay attention to.
Perhaps I did this because it was my experience as a child too. And perhaps I did it because somewhere, deep down, I felt that shame could be a powerful way to manipulate my child into being who I wanted them to be. Isn’t that what many of us still believe? That shaming people, calling them out, judging them, will lead them to change their behaviour, to change who they are?
Except that it’s not. Shame is not a powerful motivator. We know that now (and I’m lost as to why we haven’t known this all along).
Non-judgment is how we move away from communicating, mothering and parenting with shame, to doing all of that with radical acceptance.
Radically loving
If our young people know that whatever they think, say and do will be met with non-judgment, then perhaps they are more likely to be themselves around us, or to show feelings that the rest of society might condemn, or to say something they’re not sure is right but need feedback on, because they know we will hear it and won’t judge.
Non-judgment does not mean we won’t have an opinion on things, or that we won’t speak up when we feel something is wrong or right. It does mean we can still look at a choice that was perhaps unwise, or harmful, or that we simply don’t agree with, with curiousity and compassion rather than condemnation.
In my experience, fear of shaming and condemnation has often led to agreements with my children that were rooted in.. well, fear. And that’s not what I want our relationship and our mutual understanding to be based on. Non-judging has been one of my most life-changing practices as an unschooling parent, and believe me it has not been easy.
So often I’ve thought to myself, “Well but if I don’t judge them, they won’t know what’s wrong and what’s right!” Turns out that is not how it works in practice. My values and the way I speak about them and practice them, mean that they know what I think of as wrong or right.
But people still make mistakes, and no amount of lectures or shaming is going to turn back time – the only thing it will do is make them feel that they are bad or somehow broken. And THAT is why I often go against my innate tendency to rush to judgment, and choose nonjudgment instead.
In an environment of non-judgment, consent-based relationships can grow and bloom.
UCP and non-judgment lead us right back towards self-consent, and feeling that we are worthy. If the antithesis of consent lies in the oppressive structures we have established and now live under, then our way out of these is, to an extent, filling ourselves with all the ways self-worth looks like.
It will be really hard to live in a consent-based space with our children, or anyone, if we do not inherently feel we can be ourselves, and love ourselves for just existing. That is all the work we do, in many ways, to express non-judgment and UCP.
These practice go beyond self-acceptance and acceptance of others: they lead to what Sonya Renée Taylor calls “radical self-love” and radical love of our children.
Love is a verb
My son Leo lays his cards face up, for everyone to see. His vulnerability is painful at times: I fear how he will be received, out in the world, but I am also triggered by his big emotions and violent outbursts, his sudden rudeness, his extreme perfectionism, the way he is an open book.
I’m jolted by this because both his openness and his authenticity bump up against my own fear and say, “Hey! Look at me! I can just be me and I will be loved, wasn’t it like that for you?” And no, it wasn’t – or at least, I didn’t feel like it was, and what I felt overrides any good intentions my parents may have had.
bell hooks writes about how fragile it can feel to “embrace a definition of love that would no longer enable us to see love as present in our families.” Love is a verb, she writes, and what matters is how you do it; “love and abuse cannot coexist.”
The way we love our children sets them up to know what love looks like as a practice, not merely as a feeling.
I recognise this can feel heavy. I have had moments of reckoning with the idea that perhaps what I was doing was not love. I can struggle with this and still recognise that I don’t need to keep perpetuating a notion of love that is not a practice of unconditional care and regard.
Never Enough
Self-consent, UCP and non-judgment are part of the inner work we do, but the idea that they are things we work on individually and alone, is truly an illusion, and is itself part of the problem.
We don’t exist in a vacuum: in fact, we exist in a culture that is white supremacist, patriarchal and capitalistic. We exist in a culture where the idea of scarcity is pervasive, and actively places itself in the way of our own healing. We exist in a culture where we are not raised to think and act relationally.
Our culture of hyper-individualism acts as a barrier between us so that we are led to believe that healing happens individually and alone, which in itself reinforces how truly difficult it is to do this work, and makes us feel even less capable, even less worthy, even less equipped to handle this.
Our systems promote a culture of scarcity that pervades everything. It is intimately woven into our conditioning. We struggle to figure out who we are and what we really want; to be solid about how we really want to show up in the world; to sit in our own sense of self and make decisions that come from a place of worthiness.
Beyond the inner landscape
Self-consent, UCP and non-judgment is the work we do with and on ourselves, the inner landscape work. We learn to trust ourselves, listen to our intuition, deconstruct societal conditioning, and also sit with the mish mash that we are. We learn to look upon ourselves and our children with love and compassion. We go beyond mere acceptance, to full-fledged love.
It is personal work, but it is also systemic, because you cannot separate the human from the systems, institutions and societies we are raised in. I love how Sonya Renée Taylor puts it:
“Radical self-love starts with the individual, expands to the family, community, and organization, and ultimately transforms society. All while still unwaveringly holding you in the center of that expansion.”
The work we do on our inner landscape has to go hand in hand with change in relationships, in families and in communities. It has to happen alongside and weaving in and out of the work we do to dismantle systems of oppression, power hierarchies and cycles of domination.
We begin with knowing and loving ourselves, with being on our own side (Self-consent!), we expand into doing the same for our children (UCP & non-judgment), and we don’t stop there. We are always expanding out.
That’s where we’re going next: we will look at the outer landscapes of creating a culture of consent.
Thank you for reading!! Feel free to comment below, or reach out to me by replying to this email.
Once again we are not alone. I read this thinking "Can Fran read my journal are they getting downloads of my voice recordings?" Other than your terminology of UCP this piece read as if you'd pulled the words out my mouth. In fact after 4 years of no-contact I just allowed my parents back into my home this weekend and it was a masking struggle for days until it clicked that I need to extend to them UCP and non-judgement. I needed to not let their best actions, informed by old ideas cut off the flow of love for the persons they are; the people I see myself in. It hurts to be hurt by your best friend/family/parents but behavior is not personality but a reflection of doing your best giving your circumstances. I felt rejected by my father b/c he never checks on me especially in times of mental crisis. He grew up without phones and everyone near. I realized I had to extend grace to a man who after 50 years refuses to break old habits from 70 years ago. It sucks but if I can accept what I don't like in my kids and adjust to offer UCP to them gosh darn it, THAT proves I have it in me to offer it to those old people that did their best with me.
School and how they pushed me through it is what created the rift in our relationship. Being raised by a new stranger each year and parents feeling powerless turning over trust to teachers created another rift. But you know what, I now know better. I now know they didn't know better. They only knew fear of their brown children's safety in a country where slavery is still legal and lynching still happens.
Thanks for sharing this Fran.