Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Parenting With Love and Logic
by Foster W. Cline and Jim Fay


When I cracked this book open we were hitting a "rough patch" in the Golding Home. By "rough patch" I mean, Ethan was doing some MAJOR reverting back to toddler behavior and throwing tantrums, yelling and crying much more, and I was feeling pretty nervous. I often get nervous when it comes to prenting-there are literally MILLIONS of experts out there all contradicting each other on what parenting techniques are the best...not to mention the experts who you meet in the grocery store, at church, doctor's office and in your family. I was confused about where to begin, positive that if I made the wrong decision, Ethan would be destined to a life of criminality(well, maybe not criminality but...time outs.) So...in my new desperation and sadness at watching my 4 year old becoming a pretty unpleasant little guy I turned to this book. All I want to say is," Hallelujah!" I loved it and saw results within the first week of trying these techniques. It felt weird at first to let Ethan discover his own consequences for not wearing a coat in the cold, hurt to watch him hungry after choosing not to eat dinner, and was hard to allow him more control over his own decisions BUT after you get over the initial shock of these new techniques you will LOVE the outcome. Really- if you are a parent, will be one someday, work with children in any form YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!

1 comment:

lynsey said...

oooooh! andrea you stole mine! it is like the only non-fiction book i've read in a million years. i really appreciated a LOT of what this book said. it actually is very very similar to what we do here at the group home so i thought that was cool that we may actually be helping these kids instead of hurting them. but it did help me with caleb...i realized i am a "helicopter" mom & don't want to stifle my child. i really liked what this book taught me & would recommend it to anyone...even if they aren't parents yet!!