Parenting With Love And Logic (Updated and Expanded Edition) Hardcover – May 3, 2006

As a child and family therapist, families come to me wanting to know why their kids meet the diagnostic criteria for Oppositional Defiant Disorder and how to "control" them. Parenting with Love and Logic helps parents to see that it is never about controlling or manipulating our kids and that we really cannot control anyone but ourselves.The book and the class provide parents with a different way of communicating with children that can bring about a change in the child's and the parent's negative, angry, and disruptive behaviors.It shows that if a parent approaches their role as a consultant to their child instead of micro-managing the child's every move (which worked when the child was an infant but needs to be gradually phased out as the child develops more and more independence from the parent), the child will feel more respected and competant and will not engage in a power struggle which often escalates into temper tantrums and very defiant behavior.Children need both limits and love and this book describes hands-on ways to provide both. This book has not only helped me as a therapist to help the families and children I treat, but it has also helped me as a parent myself.My husband and I began implementing the principles and techniques when our son was three. The use of choices and enforceable statements, along with the "uh-oh" song, made a significant difference in his behavior. He is now five years old and loves to think for himself. My husband and I obviously provide lots of supervision and are always available to him emotionally.The "uh-oh" song, besides providing a "time-out" consequence for our son has also had the incredible additional benefit of giving our son a technique to calm himself down from a tantrum. He will put himself in "bedroom recovery time" when he melts down! This blew my mind so I also taught him mindfulness meditation so that he could have "bedroom recovery time" anywhere, any time!It is really gratifying and enjoyable to be around a child who contributes so much to our family and our home, but yet has his own opinions and outlook on life and has his own interests that he can pursue on his own like reading, drawing, and playing with toys when his mom and dad need to get other chores done. He is genuinely fun to be around, at home and on vacation, and his teachers love having him in the classroom.I myself was raised in a highly dysfunctional and verbally abusive home. Even with our education, my husband and I still resorted to yelling and spanking. Parenting with Love and Logic provided us with much healthier alternatives. The whole idea of providing empathy but holding children accountable for their bad decisions helped me to not yell and get upset with my child.The only danger in following the advice of this book is that if a parent is personality-disordered or for some reason lacks empathy, these techniques will come off to the child as controlling, manipulative, and possible sadistic. The book, however, addresses this issue. As parents, we should always look at where we are at emotionally ourselves and if we need counseling in order to heal from our own hurts, we should avail ourselves of it so that we do not take it out on our kids.Also, I agree with the dog lovers. Never let a dog be neglected. I wouldn't even lay that kind of trip on a kid. If parents want a dog then the parents can get a dog, train the dog, feed the dog, etc. Don't get a dog expecting kids to take care of it.

So, you think children don't come with a manual, eh? Well here it is! Pass on Dobson and all the others. This is the only guide parents will need! I get it as my gift to bring for every baby shower that I go to, and for most new parents, and have been doing so for decades. This information never goes out of style.Cline & Fay teach parents to safely step back, stop hovering, and to let the child do the thinking. And to let the natural consequences of their actions (or inactions) do the teaching. And it works! Gone are the power struggles when the child gets to make so many choices... and has to live with their choices. I will never forget the time my son ran out of clean pants on a school day. I looked in the laundry basket, and there were no pants in it to be laundered (apparently they were all in his room, on the floor). "What will you do?"I put this information into action! My kids were concerned that they would oversleep, so they went to bed at a reasonable hour and set their own alarm clocks. They were worried that they wouldn't be ready when the bus arrived - or that they wouldn't be outside in time to catch the school bus. They were the ones who had to stop and think whether they were forgetting to take anything that was needed - and whether to wear a jacket or raincoat. They were concerned about their own good grades and homework, and they brushed their teeth like the dickens so they wouldn't get cavities. And nobody wanted B.O., so they cheerfully bathed daily!!We didn't argue or fight, and there was almost never a need for punishment of any kind again after putting these principles in play - and letting the kids know.When my oldest son began high school, his English teacher told us that all students were given the assignment to write about how they would parent their own children differently, or not, and to support their reasons. My son was the ONLY student to say that he would parent his own children the same way he had been raised, "with Love & Logic," and he made a great case for it. He saw how his friends' parents treated them, and he preferred the respect he got at home.When kids are little, the consequences of their actions may be that they are cold because they didn't want to wear a coat, or that they are hungry because they couldn't be bothered to come to dinner when called (we called everyone to the dinner table exactly once, then proceeded to eat with or without them), or they are sleepy all day if they stayed up too late the night before. But the little guys need a TON of practice in making these types of decisions so that they understand that every choice has a consequence, and so they get better at making good choices, over time. Because, the older they get, the more dire the consequences become. They had better be able to make a great evaluation by the time the choices involve drinking, drugs, driving, sex, etc. because YOU won't be there to make good choices for them.To this very day, both of my kids are responsible, self-reliant, and polite people. And we all had such a good time raising them!