apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

No, I do not think it is giving children too much power. It is giving them what they need.
You might find Naomi Aldort interesting too. Her book Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves is great. So is Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting. Here's a clip of Aldort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JooO_c3tBs4

I love Alfie Kohn!

I dunno. I was all about NVC, Kohn, etc, until my son turned 3 and became a very short teenager. Contrary to my parenting theory (back when he was an immobile babe - ah, those were the days) I now find myself turning more and more to punitive methods. Not surprisingly, he does not want to put his toys away, brush his teeth, leave the dog alone, give Mommy back her earrings, stop drawing on the couch, etc etc etc. Not surprisingly, explaining my reasoning, asking him nicely, and giving him all kinds of autonomy does not change his mind. I know that if I wait patiently he will eventually decide to brush his teeth on his own, with no power struggles or drama. Lovely. Too bad I have a job and can't wait around for an hour and a half every morning for him to make that decision. Kids do need respect and autonomy, but they also need limits and to know that the world does not revolve around them. E.g. Mommy has to go to work and you have to go to preschool, and that means you are going to brush your teeth, period, end of story.

this seems well-meaning, but why does the article pretend that there is an either/or at work - "either you do nvc or you hit your children until they suffer". um, yeah, clearly there is a pretty wide spectrum in between those extremes. children need calm and patient parents, for sure, and should never be hit, but they also need to know that their world has actual limits and that those limits are unbreakable even when tested. so, yeah, it might not be entirely fair that mommy gets to tell you to eat vegetables with dinner and go to sleep at a decent hour, but that doesn't mean you get to negate those things with a "well-reasoned" counter-argument. it is a pretty well-proven fact of neurological development that until late adolescence children do not have the ability (really, the cognitive development) to be able to fully envision the consequences of their actions or to see the "big picture" of their life. this is as it should be - but it is absolutely the job of their parents to explain to them repeatedly (and of course kindly and with understanding) that although today you "might not enjoy the fact that your bedtime falls at a set time every time" or whatever the terminology the article used, that is not something you get to argue with. the article mentions "protective force" as just the immediate intervention in pulling a child away from a busy street, but i would argue that mild coersion to get a toddler to eat right or go to bed also falls into the protective force category. they don't know that not getting their vitamins will stunt their development - but you do. a lot of this nvc seems to point to parents wanting to let go of their necessary authoritative responsibilities (perhaps because they confuse an authoritative style with an authoritarian one). you - hopefully - know more than your kid, and that knowledge needs to be imparted.

I too, love "Unconditional Parenting."

I also highly recommend "How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk." It is mostly NVC, it just doesn't call it that. It has made a HUGE difference in the way I communicate with my 3 year old son.

My favorite is Parenting with Love and Logic. It is such an excellent, kind way of offering children freedoms coupled with their responsibilities.