911 for Parents: Have a New Kid by Friday by Kevin Leman
For frazzled parents who can't get through to The Nanny but need help yesterday, best-selling media family psychologist Kevin Leman has a brand-new parent-help book out, Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child's Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days,
Actually, he promises to get you ready to start in five days, having absorbed his general schema for encouraging desired behavior on Monday through Friday. He swears you'll be saying, "I can't wait for my kids to misbehave. I'm ready for them." If that sounds a bit flip, it's only Leman's characteristic dry wit at work. His very sensible, down-to-earth advice is dealt out with an honest humor honed by many stints as psychological talking head on programs from Good Morning, America to Oprah.
"There's a conspiracy going on right in your own home. The ankle biter battalion and the hormone group each have a game plan guaranteed to drive you up the wall," Leman writes. "They are part of the entitlement group." Leman's thesis is that the parents' job is not to make their children "happy" or filled with "self-esteem." "Nothing in life is a free ride," he points out. Children gain, not "self-esteem," but self-worth by being responsible members of a family, by being responsible for the outcomes of their actions. Here are his three rules of thumb:
1. Let reality be the teacher where you can (unless, of course, serious safety issues are involved).
2. Learn to respond, not react personally, to children's behavior.
3. Use the B doesn't happen until A is completed strategy, as in "I didn't like the way you acted when I asked you to clear the table. I'm not driving you to Josh's house today." (Turn and walk away)
As he points out, somewhat to our surprise, parents really hold all the cards. We have the money, we have the food, we have the cars, and, most of all, we have what kids want the most--our attention and approval, he emphasizes.
Leman is not advocating parental detachment. He reminds the reader that all children, tots to teens, want and need their parents' attention and approval desperately. His three pillars for building a solid sense of self worth are to help the child feel 1)unconditional acceptance 2) a sense of belonging to a family, and 3)a sense of personal competence. Approval, however, should not be in the form of praise which tells the child how "good" he is, but which encourages good "actions." (Not "You are so totally wonderful," but "I noticed how you came up with a way to help your little sister find her toy without being asked.")
Leman's quick-fix manual contains a very useful alphabetical section of tips on problem areas from "Bedtime" to "Wardrobe," (where he points out that "Children wear costumes every day; they may look like clothes but they are actually carefully thought-out costumes.") Aimed at the mostly garden variety parent-child conflicts, rather than the so-called "spirited" or "strong-willed" child, Leman offers his newest guide to solutions for common child-raising hassles. For a somewhat more detailed look at strategies for child raising, you might also take a look at Leman's best-selling classic Making Children Mind without Losing Yours.
Labels: Discipline, Parenting (Adults)
posted by GTC at
12:01 AM
17 Comments:
Except advise like this works only if your kids are easily manipulated. But then again, books like this are meant to be sold, not actually work. (And the author can feel smug.)
By
Anonymous, at 11:33 PM
Kids are easily manipulated. If you have a hard time doing it, it is more likely that you are even more easily manipulated than a child.
By
Phelps, at 12:04 AM
That's low, Anonymous. If you are going to post a scathing insult like that, at least have the guts to post your name with it. Also, it would seem to me that you don't have any evidence to back up your claim. Perhaps you are one of those "self-esteem is all important" or "I want to be my child's friend" parents. Here's a wake-up call for you: I won't order you to raise your kids my way, but the children I've seen that were raised by the aforementioned parent types were unmanageable brats, idiots, & arrogant, cruel, self-absorbed half-wits, with an occasional touch of sadism. I still remember when my high-school police officer had to be called in to restrain a 6th-grader who tried to gang-rape a girl for the 4th time. That finally put him in juvenile detention. Evil makes no distinctions between ages, & it is a parent's duty to keep their child from becoming that kind of person. You can't do that by "preserving his/her self-esteem".
As for does it really work, I haven't read the book, but the bits of advice above have all worked for me & my associates. The most important thing to remember is that children & adolescents are not adults: they don't understand things we take for granted, & we can't treat them as peers-if we want to be proper parents, there will be times when we must be hard on them, & if they see us as peers & friends, they will treat us with contempt, & ignore lessons that might very well save their lives, or at least their lifestyles.
A good example is that we can't just tell them that something was good or bad-we have to explain WHY it was good or bad. If we don't, then it gives the impression that these things are not under the child's control, & thus gets rid of the need for them to maintain their behavior. This is oftentimes difficult, & you have to explain things in stages: more information & complexity as they grow older.
Parenting is a monstrously hard & complex job, perhaps the hardest in existence: it is not for the faint of heart (i.e., "I want to be my child's friend").
Hopes for the best, Thomas
By
Anonymous, at 1:03 AM
For the geeks: Kids are like neural nets. They need encouragement of correct behaviour and discouragement of bad behaviour. Eventually they will grow a moral brain and figure it out themselves.
By
Anonymous, at 3:31 AM
I have 9 kids, 1/2 adopted so I think I speak from a larger experience base than many. We would like to believe environmental controls are the whole picture for rearing children because that's what we can control. The above advice is excellent for normal kids. "Strong willed..." is a whole new topic and there's excellent reason to believe many kids are born contrary and grow up that way. Genetic pre-disposition seems unalterable and one can just hope that evil isn't the starting point.
Thanks RonWms
By
Anonymous, at 4:41 AM
what kids need are slaps upside the head, cigarette smoke and loud concerts.
hell, I turned out fine.
Also, you douchebags need to stop having kids; it'll tire my kid out having to beat the shit out of them all the time and you'll probably get tired of hearing them cry. And if you complain, my kid will recite dostoyevsky into you asshole. then I will punch you.
Get fucked you bourgeoise nitwits.
By
Anonymous, at 5:56 AM
If by "fine" you mean profane, violent, aggressive, intolerant and hostile, then yes, you are fine.
By all means pass on all these character traits to your children.
Why would anyone ever post something this angry on a site called Booksforkids??
By
Anonymous, at 7:48 AM
Because 5:56 a.m. is actually a fourteen-year-old boy who imagines he's clever.
By
Anonymous, at 8:28 AM
My sister gave me the best advice I ever had about parenting. She said they are like puppies. If you train them well when they are young, they will behave well when they get older. I firmly believe that kids will do just what is expected of them (for the most part) and that unruly children suffer from too low expectations. I agree with 1:03 a.m., parenting is a very hard job, it takes every moment of your time and cannot be deferred without consequence. You cannot bring a child into the world and wait to see how they will turn out. The parent's job is to help that child become a positive, contributing member of our society.
By
Anonymous, at 8:49 AM
Jeepers, Jonah, what happened to you on the way to growing up? I wish I could have been your parent and raised you without cigarette smoke and blows to the head. (Music is OK by me.)
Love the kids and SHOW them how to do right!
By
Anonymous, at 9:08 AM
One of the single most overlooked factors in child development is sleep disorders. When parents here this claim, they typically imagine I'm referring to behavioral issues of not getting enough sleep or related behaviors in which kids fight bedtime, etc.
These behavioral issues are important for many kids, but physical sleep disorders are probably more important in kids with general behavioral problems that manifest as irritability, poor or excess appetite, attention and concentration problems, fatigue and sleepiness, and ultimately difficulties in school performance.
The single most common physical sleep disorder in kids is sleep-disordered breathing, and most people probably know the condition by the name sleep apnea.
Remarkably sleep breathing problems are very common in children, and the biggest problem they cause are frazzled or fragmented brain waves during sleep, such that the central nervous system (the brain) is not properly rested each night.
If you want to develop picture in your mind of just how powerful sleep breathing problems are in influencing children's behavior, consider this example. A sleep researcher, David Gozal, did a study some years back in which he discovered that many "C" students in the 5th grade had sleep disordered breathing. Tonsillectomy, an excellent treatment for sleep breathing in this age group, was offered to these "C" students. Among the parents who elected to have their kids undergo surgery, those children became "B" students within the next year. Among those kids who did not undergo surgery, they remained "C" students a year later.
Sleep is a very big deal and surely that is something to sleep on when considering misbehaving children.
Read more at my site www.sleeptreatment.com.
By
Anonymous, at 9:39 AM
Yes, I agree that children are in a sense like puppies.
We had 4 children. Two of our own, one my wife’s daughter from a former marriage and the other a boy who at I had taken in when I was single from a friend; a boy who was exceptionally bright but had little self-discipline. I remarried when I was 33 and I had never had children of my own. My wife and I treated each of the four children equally in love and attention as was humanly possible. I always explained the whys and where-fors and pushed for open communications. We almost always had dinner together and used that to discuss everything imaginable. Dinner time I considered one of the most important times in our day. I was sort of a DI type in setting limits; that I guess was from my six year military back ground and upbringing. We hoped for respect but I also knew that a little fear worked too, when properly calibrated. Our four turned our just fine; the son who was not my son made a career of the navy and is now retired, the twin boys went to college with one now in the army and the step-daughter is happily married.
If a family with 3 names on the mailbox, so to speak, could succeed, I often wonder, looking around at the seemly disrespectful and undisciplined youth of today, what is wrong with modern American parenting? Then I remember that many of those very same youths have become volunteers in our military that has performed so magnificently with such minimal support from their fellow Americans. So, I guess there is hope, even if American’s parenting skills are imperfect.
By
Anonymous, at 11:26 AM
I think anonymous at 4:41 is correct.
The post is very good, the points are all valid. They will work with most kids.
Unfortunately, I think there is a small number of kids for which the advice is not enough. For some kids, providing the right cues and encouragements is not enough.
In fact, one benefit of books like these may be to identify such kids. If you notice that one of your kids responds well to the techniques, but another one does not, then you may be able to conclude that your techniques are sound but one of our children does not respond the same way as most to normal parenting techniques.
By
sean foley, at 5:12 PM
My daughter buys into that "self-esteem" stuff and even has a degree in child psychology. My grandchildren are absolute monsters.
But a funny thing happens when Grandma comes to visit. They turn into angels. Grandma doesn't have a degree, she only went to school a few years in her entire life. But she expects a lot and will let them know in no uncertain terms when they are not acting up to her expectations.
She may be a little Asian woman with a funny accent, but she gets results. That's the way my kids were raised. It's funny that my daughter should have forgot all that.
Too much education and not enough learning, I guess
By
Anonymous, at 6:14 PM
Good point, Sean,
You'll notice that the mention of "spirited or strong-willed" kids in this post is a link to several earlier reviews of books for parents of more "difficult" children. My post of February 14 also reviews a book on managing the so-called "defiant" child by Alan Kazdin.
I agree that some children will not respond well to advice such as Leman offers in this book, and that when solid strategies do not seem to work, parents should take it to a another level, the earlier the better. As an earlier comment said, parenting is a "hard and complex job," it goes on for a long, long time, and its results are not altogether predictable.
By
GTC, at 6:18 PM
Barry Krakow MD:
I can certainly vouch for that -- my very "difficult" five year old, having suffered from unidentified "allergies" and repeated ear infections, was finally diagnosed with enlarged adenoids that were causing him to snore and sleep poorly. Two weeks after his adenoidectomey/tonsillectomy he was a new child. The change was amazing, and it is so good to see him happy and successful now.
CC
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