I had high hopes for this method, because my 9 year old can be very defiant at times. I found that I already employed many of the methods in this book. I have always given her choices and allowed her to live with the consequences of her behavior, and have found that those strategies only work to a point. My problem is that my 9 year old is too smart to fall for it most of the time! She is smart enough to realize that since I offered the choices, I'm actually the one making the decisions. She'll always insist on a 3rd option that isn't one of my approved 'choices' for her. Same with the consequences. If I tell her she can eat lunch after she cleans her mess, she'll point out that Dad and I get to choose whether to clean before or after we eat, so why can't she. She figured out that the 'natural' consequences are actually being imposed by me. It just doesn't work with her.
However, the choices and consequences issue is not enough to impel me to give the book 1 star. I'm giving it such a low rating because the authors go to a dangerous extreme in their advice. I refuse to withhold meals from my stick-skinny 4 year old because she's acting...well...like a 4 year old! I refuse to allow my dog to become malnourished in order to allow my child to have a learning experience. I refuse to sit by and watch my child to become the neighborhood bully in the hopes that she will eventually learn the error of her ways. I refuse to watch my child's grades go down the toilet while I wait for her to experience her learning moment. Parenting requires a certain amount of responsibility, and to shirk that responsibility in the name of 'significant learning opportunities' is setting a bad example for our children.Get more detail about Parenting With Love And Logic (Updated and Expanded Edition).
No comments:
Post a Comment