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fleaLove & Limits: Guidance Tools for Creative Parenting, Elizabeth Crary (1994)
This is a parenting book from the La Leche League library, and it's a rare parenting book indeed, because I agree with every word of it. It's a wonderful book - for me, anyway. First among its wonderful points: it's only 47 pages long. Woo-hoo! It begings with a short review of what behavior is developmentally appropriate for what ages, and a reminder that aspects of temperment seem to be innate - what you can expect from a very active 2 year old is different from what you can expect from a painfully shy 4 year old. Then there are sections on giving enough attention to your child (I agree that a lot of child bad behavior is attention-seeking; see above, Alexander) and praising and rewarding good behavior (if you only comment on behavior when it's not what you want, how are you reinforcing the positives?). Avoid bad behavior by giving clear expectations, offering choices where it's a win-win, and distracting/changing the subject as necessary. (For example, I got a reluctant Casper dressed Saturday while she was so interested in my sewing drawer that she hardly noticed clothes going on.) It's important to acknowledge feelings and teach children that it's okay to be angry, but you still have to put your seatbelt on, and you have ways to deal with the emotions that are appropriate (hitting Mommy is not okay, but if you're frustrated and want to hit the pillow, that might make you feel better.) Section 4 is set limits - appropriate ones. This is the hardest for me - deciding what is important, what your child can reasonably be expected to do, and what is negotiable, and sticking to it - because if you negotiate some times and not others, the child learns how to walk all over you. The last is teaching the child new skills - whether physical, emotional, or behavioral - through modeling, explaining, physically demonstrating, and breaking things down into steps. The overall message is that parents should understand their children, make appropriate rules, and HAVE A PLAN to deal with the inevitable testing, whining, or whatever. There's a lot of emphasis on creativity and dealing with things on the fly, too, but she emphasizes brainstorming ahead of time so you have ready-thought-out tricks up your sleeve to pull out if( when) things go wrong.
mr. flea and I had a really great talk abut how the Great Clothing Meltdown of 2005 went badly and then resolved itself well, and what skills mr. flea used successfully, and what he could have used to make it better in the middle bad part.
A note: I am almost certain this is by Elizabeth Pantley of the No Cry Sleep Solution and other books, based on name, style, based in Seattle. I guess she got divorced and remarried? I wonder how that flies with the hard-core attachment parenting people?
This is a parenting book from the La Leche League library, and it's a rare parenting book indeed, because I agree with every word of it. It's a wonderful book - for me, anyway. First among its wonderful points: it's only 47 pages long. Woo-hoo! It begings with a short review of what behavior is developmentally appropriate for what ages, and a reminder that aspects of temperment seem to be innate - what you can expect from a very active 2 year old is different from what you can expect from a painfully shy 4 year old. Then there are sections on giving enough attention to your child (I agree that a lot of child bad behavior is attention-seeking; see above, Alexander) and praising and rewarding good behavior (if you only comment on behavior when it's not what you want, how are you reinforcing the positives?). Avoid bad behavior by giving clear expectations, offering choices where it's a win-win, and distracting/changing the subject as necessary. (For example, I got a reluctant Casper dressed Saturday while she was so interested in my sewing drawer that she hardly noticed clothes going on.) It's important to acknowledge feelings and teach children that it's okay to be angry, but you still have to put your seatbelt on, and you have ways to deal with the emotions that are appropriate (hitting Mommy is not okay, but if you're frustrated and want to hit the pillow, that might make you feel better.) Section 4 is set limits - appropriate ones. This is the hardest for me - deciding what is important, what your child can reasonably be expected to do, and what is negotiable, and sticking to it - because if you negotiate some times and not others, the child learns how to walk all over you. The last is teaching the child new skills - whether physical, emotional, or behavioral - through modeling, explaining, physically demonstrating, and breaking things down into steps. The overall message is that parents should understand their children, make appropriate rules, and HAVE A PLAN to deal with the inevitable testing, whining, or whatever. There's a lot of emphasis on creativity and dealing with things on the fly, too, but she emphasizes brainstorming ahead of time so you have ready-thought-out tricks up your sleeve to pull out if( when) things go wrong.
mr. flea and I had a really great talk abut how the Great Clothing Meltdown of 2005 went badly and then resolved itself well, and what skills mr. flea used successfully, and what he could have used to make it better in the middle bad part.
A note: I am almost certain this is by Elizabeth Pantley of the No Cry Sleep Solution and other books, based on name, style, based in Seattle. I guess she got divorced and remarried? I wonder how that flies with the hard-core attachment parenting people?
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Date: 2005-09-27 04:17 pm (UTC)and Pantley: http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth/content/about.htm
that would have been an interesting coincidence, though...