{"id":1502,"date":"2009-12-15T22:34:32","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T04:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2009-12-16T14:02:07","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T20:02:07","slug":"good-reads-making-children-mind-without-losing-yours-by-kevin-leman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/15\/good-reads-making-children-mind-without-losing-yours-by-kevin-leman\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Reads: Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours, by Kevin Leman"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have been experiencing more and more problems with The Littlest Apple ignoring what we say, having tantrums, and just generally being his strong-willed little two year old self.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve read many a parenting book (and I plan to go back and blog reviews of some about strong-willed children at some point).\u00c2\u00a0 Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours<\/a>, by Dr. Kevin Leman is my latest read, and I found some really great advice in this one.<\/p>\n

\"Making<\/a><\/p>\n

This book by Kevin Leman is written from a Christian perspective (primarily based on Ephesians 6:1-4), and teaches what Leman refers to as “reality discipline,” which consists of a healthy balance of discipline and respect.\u00c2\u00a0 The idea is not to be too permissive and not to be too authoritarian.\u00c2\u00a0 (Much easier said than done!)\u00c2\u00a0 While aimed at parents of kids of all ages and not just parents of toddlers, I still found plenty of great advice to use with my 2 year old.<\/p>\n

Here are the 7 Principles of Reality Discipline<\/strong> that are discussed in detail in this book:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Establish a healthy authority over your children.<\/strong> A family is not a democracy.\u00c2\u00a0 Parents need to be parents.\u00c2\u00a0 Authority needs to be a display of love over power.<\/li>\n
  2. Hold your children accountable for their actions. <\/strong>Don’t make excuses for your children.\u00c2\u00a0 They need to learn about the negative and positive consequences of their actions.<\/li>\n
  3. Let reality be the teacher.<\/strong> Don’t be afraid to let your kids fail.\u00c2\u00a0 Look for teachable moments in the everyday.<\/li>\n
  4. Use action more than words.<\/strong> Make your expectations clear, but don’t keep repeating yourself.<\/li>\n
  5. Stick to your guns, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot. <\/strong>Make a decision and stick to it.\u00c2\u00a0 You have to be strong and outlast the marathon whining sessions.<\/li>\n
  6. Relationships come before rules<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Learn who your children really are…what makes them tick.\u00c2\u00a0 Teach your children to love others, to put others first, to be givers not takers.<\/li>\n
  7. Live by your values.<\/strong> Your children learn from watching you.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One of the main techniques that I took away from this book is all about how to use actions instead of words.\u00c2\u00a0 This particular technique Leman refers to as “pulling the rug out and let the little buzzards tumble.”\u00c2\u00a0 That sounds SO harsh, doesn’t it?\u00c2\u00a0 But this really just means to stop throwing empty threats at your children and to actually DO something instead of just listening to lots of whining or tantrums.\u00c2\u00a0 The example provided is that when a child complains about dinner (ahem, all you picky eaters!!), you simply dump their food down the garbage disposal.\u00c2\u00a0 The idea is that eventually, the child will learn that you aren’t going to mess around.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s pretty extreme in my opinion, and I’m not quite on board with the extremes he goes to, but this technique has its merits. At my house, we aren’t going to apply this idea to food as long as The Littlest Apple’s other food issues<\/a> continue.\u00c2\u00a0 BUT I certainly started apply this “pulling the rug out” idea to other<\/em> things.\u00c2\u00a0 When The Littlest Apple does something I don’t like, doesn’t listen, or has a tantrum, I only give him one quick warning before I put him in timeout.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes no warning at all, depending on the severity of his action (and ok, sometimes my mood too).\u00c2\u00a0 No more warning after warning after warning<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 That was getting really<\/em> old, and we weren’t getting anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that I’ve started this new method, The Littlest Apple is starting to listen to directions and warnings a little better.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve still got quite a ways to go though.<\/p>\n

    There is also a great deal to learn from this book on how to earn your child’s respect.\u00c2\u00a0 As Leman points out, you can attempt to discipline your child all day long, but earning their respect is a whole different ballgame, and definitely makes the discipline attempts work a little better.<\/p>\n

    One caveat:\u00c2\u00a0 Leman is in favor of spanking, used sparingly.\u00c2\u00a0 I personally am not in favor of spanking ever<\/em>, so I disagreed with those portions of this book.\u00c2\u00a0 That being said, there is still lots to learn here!<\/p>\n

    Disclaimer: I was not paid to review this book.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just a good read that I wanted to share with you! However, the links above are Amazon Affiliate<\/a> links.
    \n<\/em><\/p>\n

    <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We have been experiencing more and more problems with The Littlest Apple ignoring what we say, having tantrums, and just generally being his strong-willed little two year old self.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve read many a parenting book (and I plan to go back and blog reviews of some about strong-willed children at some point).\u00c2\u00a0 Making Children Mind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,49,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-motherhood","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1519,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}