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carrie562 's review for:
Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility
by Foster Cline, Jim Fay
I really wanted to like this book. I strongly agree with the philosophy of giving children logical consequences rather than engaging in power struggles and shouting matches, or just parenting by incessant nagging without follow-through (yes, guilty). But frankly I found a lot of their "practical tips" completely unrealistic and therefore of limited usefulness.
For instance:
"Bedtime, like many other control issues, can be defused by giving up control. Parents tend to underestimate children's need for just a tiny bit of control [...] all they want is a little control, not the whole enchilada."
So far, so good. Give the child limited control. He has to stay in his room, but he may have the door open or closed, light on or off, music on or off, be in bed or out of bed, sleep or not sleep. You give him the *opportunity* to get as much sleep as he needs, but you can't force him to sleep. Makes sense. But then:
"[The child who hasn't had enough sleep] is going to be one obnoxious little dude in the morning. [...] It's the obnoxiousness we consequence, not the number of hours he sleeps. Say to the child, 'You need to spend more time in your room because you're cranky.' The child will probably say, 'Well, I didn't get enough sleep last night.' [emphasis mine] And your reply? 'Good thinking.' The lesson will hit home."
Okay ... has any child, anywhere, ever acknowledged that they were emotional, moody, and overreacting because they were tired? Many adults won't even acknowledge this. In my experience, suggesting to a fraught child that they may be getting angry because they're tired just brings an increased frenzy. "I am NOT tired, I'm angry because YOU'RE THE MEANEST MOTHER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!" (exact quote)
On temper tantrums: "Kids will throw tantrums only as long as they work. Kids never seem to scream and pound the floor when they're alone in their room, but the show goes on when they have a captive audience." This is laughably, demonstrably false. It would be hilarious -- except that it's so widely believed that it creates a pernicious judgmentalism among the relatives of those of us with rage-prone children. I know for a fact that our daughter's grandparents believe she throws tantrums only because we clearly must "give in" and let her have her way when she screams -- though they've never observed us doing this (because we don't).
How to keep kids in their rooms: "If I can't change his behavior, I change the location." Send him to his room, of course. But how to enforce that? "[A]void physically carrying the child to his room. [...] When the child is around age two, a statement -- 'I want you go to go your room, and I want you to go now" -- spoken firmly and with index finger pointing toward the room will usually get results."
Do these people actually have children? Well, reading on, they do acknowledge that you may need to then shut and lock the door to get the child to stay in the room. Yes, that's way better than physically carrying the child to his room. My kids don't even have doors on their rooms, so yeah, not going to happen.
Another helpful tip: if your child frequently wakes you in the night because he is frightened or having trouble sleeping, call a babysitter and go sleep at a hotel for the night! Maybe multiple nights! The babysitter, who has been prepped in advance, is supposed to make helpful conversation with the child, such as implying that if the child continues to get up in the night, the parents may spend every night away from home. If the child wakes the babysitter in the night, she is supposed to say "I don't know what to do with kids who get up in the middle of the night, because I don't know any kids who do that," and go back to sleep. Right, that'll probably work.
Many of their solutions, in fact, involve bringing in friends or accomplices who have been "prepped" with lines or roles to play, which always puts me in mind of the one-armed friend from Arrested Development ... "And that's why you always leave a note!"
For instance:
"Bedtime, like many other control issues, can be defused by giving up control. Parents tend to underestimate children's need for just a tiny bit of control [...] all they want is a little control, not the whole enchilada."
So far, so good. Give the child limited control. He has to stay in his room, but he may have the door open or closed, light on or off, music on or off, be in bed or out of bed, sleep or not sleep. You give him the *opportunity* to get as much sleep as he needs, but you can't force him to sleep. Makes sense. But then:
"[The child who hasn't had enough sleep] is going to be one obnoxious little dude in the morning. [...] It's the obnoxiousness we consequence, not the number of hours he sleeps. Say to the child, 'You need to spend more time in your room because you're cranky.' The child will probably say, 'Well, I didn't get enough sleep last night.' [emphasis mine] And your reply? 'Good thinking.' The lesson will hit home."
Okay ... has any child, anywhere, ever acknowledged that they were emotional, moody, and overreacting because they were tired? Many adults won't even acknowledge this. In my experience, suggesting to a fraught child that they may be getting angry because they're tired just brings an increased frenzy. "I am NOT tired, I'm angry because YOU'RE THE MEANEST MOTHER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!" (exact quote)
On temper tantrums: "Kids will throw tantrums only as long as they work. Kids never seem to scream and pound the floor when they're alone in their room, but the show goes on when they have a captive audience." This is laughably, demonstrably false. It would be hilarious -- except that it's so widely believed that it creates a pernicious judgmentalism among the relatives of those of us with rage-prone children. I know for a fact that our daughter's grandparents believe she throws tantrums only because we clearly must "give in" and let her have her way when she screams -- though they've never observed us doing this (because we don't).
How to keep kids in their rooms: "If I can't change his behavior, I change the location." Send him to his room, of course. But how to enforce that? "[A]void physically carrying the child to his room. [...] When the child is around age two, a statement -- 'I want you go to go your room, and I want you to go now" -- spoken firmly and with index finger pointing toward the room will usually get results."
Do these people actually have children? Well, reading on, they do acknowledge that you may need to then shut and lock the door to get the child to stay in the room. Yes, that's way better than physically carrying the child to his room. My kids don't even have doors on their rooms, so yeah, not going to happen.
Another helpful tip: if your child frequently wakes you in the night because he is frightened or having trouble sleeping, call a babysitter and go sleep at a hotel for the night! Maybe multiple nights! The babysitter, who has been prepped in advance, is supposed to make helpful conversation with the child, such as implying that if the child continues to get up in the night, the parents may spend every night away from home. If the child wakes the babysitter in the night, she is supposed to say "I don't know what to do with kids who get up in the middle of the night, because I don't know any kids who do that," and go back to sleep. Right, that'll probably work.
Many of their solutions, in fact, involve bringing in friends or accomplices who have been "prepped" with lines or roles to play, which always puts me in mind of the one-armed friend from Arrested Development ... "And that's why you always leave a note!"