Now that my son is entering his toddler years, I wanted a book to turn to for help with discipline. I read through reviews of dozens of books and settled on three, Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Respon isible Children by Dr. Thomas Gordon was the first I read. The first edition of this book came out a whopping 40 years. It claims it will show you:
- How to avoid being a permissive parent
- How to listen so kids will talk to you and talk so kids will listen to you
- How to teach your children to “own” their problems and to solve them
- How to use the “No-Lose” method to resolve conflicts
To sum it all up in a few sentences, the main idea is to use Active Listening, I-Messages, and the “No Lose” Method for Resolving Conflicts. Active Listening involves listening to your child and repeating back what you think they are feeling. You don’t just parrot back what they say, and you don’t give your opinion or advice, you just try to interpret what they are trying to tell you. Here’s an example:
CHILD (crying): Dylan took my truck away from me.
PARENT: You sure feel bad about that — you don’t like it when he does that.
CHILD: That’s right.
I-Messages, are messages about how you feel, versus You-Messages, which are judgments you make about another person. Examples of You-Messages are:
- “Your room is such a mess, you’re a slob!”
- “I feel like you take me for granted” [disguised You-Message]
- even seemingly positive messages like, “You’re being such a good boy!”
While examples of I-Messages are:
- “I get scared to death when you hit your sister. I worry that she’ll be badly injured.”
- “I worry when you don’t give me my phone messages, if I don’t return the call, I might lose a customer.”
- “Ouch! That really hurt me — I don’t like to be kicked.”
- “Thanks for helping me out. I really appreciate it!”
If the child knows how their behavior affects you, they are more likely to listen to what you have to say.
Finally, the “No-Lose” Method of Conflict Resolution is just to come to a compromise that everyone can agree on. Let your kids come up with solutions, sometimes they are much more creative than you, and they’ll feel they own the solution and be more likely to follow through.
Now, Oliver is just 13 months old, so I don’t have much experience putting this into practice with him, but it all sounded really good to me. In fact, it sounded like methods we should use with everyone in our lives, not just our kids. I recommend the book and will be trying to implement the methods into my life from now on.
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I am taking a “positive” parenting class based on Adler’s principles. Adler was a colleague of Montressori. Fascinating… The book (some dated examples) is Children: The Challenge by Driekers ?. The course is taught by Positive Parenting Solutions… fascinating. Talks about many things… (the big problems with punishment and reward, power struggles, etc) The course is helpful. There’s another book that I do not have yet that is newer and similar philosophy. The course has been fabulous. (Of course, I love school/class/learning. Just wait until your sweet little pumpkin is about 3 years old, and you’ll appreciate any readings and insights you can get.
I can only imagine. We’re already having some struggles and he’s only 15 months old!