Dear Myelle, this book has seriously been a blessing. I ordered it on Amazon and read it while we were in Hawaii and started practicing the techniques on you. It has amazingly made you so much more pleasant to be around. Before this book, we would spend an hour trying to get you to come downstairs in the morning. You would fight with us on everything - from insisting that you don't need the potty (then peeing on our carpet shortly after) to putting on clothes. You name it. My patience was really not that bad before you came along. I really used to be sane and not this lunatic you sometimes see me as. It is amazing how a little human being this size can do so much to one's mental health. Ha!
The author talks about giving lots of choices on things that may be insignificant to you as long as either of the choices won't affect anyone (for ex, "would you like to leave now or in 5 minutes?"), a strong dose of empathy before delivering a consequence/punishment ("so sad, honey") and lots more detailed techniques. It's a type of parenting style that raises kids who can better think for themselves instead of the traditional "helicopter parents" (ones that hover over their kids and fix everything that is wrong) or "drill sergeant parents" (ones who give orders and never/rarely lets their kids think for themselves). I don't want to raise a child who can't think for herself, I don't want to hover you and I don't want to constantly have to tell you to do this/do that, I want you to learn as much as you can while you're young so that you can grow up to be confident and make wise decisions. Because mama and dada can't be with you all the time in this very real world - when you make your choices on whether to take those strange drugs or not or to get into that car with a drunk friend. That's why I want to be make you as best prepared as I can.
Before this book, it used to take you up to an hour to come downstairs in the morning. One day a few months back, I told you "breakfast is over at 10 o'clock" instead of my usual repeating the same thing over and over, threatening to give your breakfast to the dog, etc etc. The book does go into teaching you what the time looks like but I didn't do it. Ten o'clock rolls around and you're still not in her chair so I told you, "so sad honey. It's past 10 o'clock. Breakfast is over." I gave your breakfast to the dog and got you out the door so we could walk the dog. The whole morning you kept asking for your breakfast in shock and my response everytime was "so sad honey. Breakfast is over." Yeah, I know I'm mean. It's one meal and it's not life or death. You lived. So the next day, we did our usual. I made breakfast and simply told you "breakfast is over in 10 minutes" without any other nagging/informing/repeating. You bolted over to your high chair so fast that I had to hold back my giggle. Every morning has been this pleasant since. Mama loves you (and Love and Logic).
2 comments:
I use Love and Logic as well! It's worked well for my family of 5. I even sometimes use it on my husband :)
Your blogs are totally value gift compute and energy.
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