I asked Catherine for a good parenting text.
She said How to Behave So Your Children Will Too by Sal Severe is her parenting Bible, and she has been using it for a year now. She says it isn't as though it is a good read, rather a place where you can pick and choose what will work for you.
Still on a search for my own identity and having had some of my loved ones caution me that I should behave myself, I thought I would read Catherine's pick of goo self-help books. My first step has been to personalize the title into How to Behave so your [Grand]children Will Too.
I am going to start reading the book with Chapter VII, "How to enjoy being a [grand]parent".
If I get some good tips from that chapter I will read more of the book.
Anyone else have good parenting books they are using?
When I had children I kept Gordon's Parent Effectiveness Training and Dreikurs's Children the Challenge close by my bed side table. I just went out to check their publishing dates, and I suspect they are so old that the printers no longer dare to print that information.
Arta
why did I read all those pregnancy books 9 years ago... I should have been reading parenting books... all 3 books are on chapters.com.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to read right through the book and am up to page fifty. I would keep reading today, but Duncan and I are going to the Science Museum, as they are on a school break (thus the reason I am here as their mom is in Russia). I like your question about when should a parent be reading self-help books. One of my moments of thinking "what is wrong with this picture" is when I was in the hospital, having just delivered a new baby and I was reading a book on how to raise teen-agers, since I also had 6 of those at home.
ReplyDeleteAs I said ... what is wrong with this picture. To finish the story, it was while laying in the hospital, reading that book that I came across this piece of information. If you are going to bawl someone out, do it in 5 sentences, or 25 words, whichever comes first. Previously being of the opinion that the lectures should be long ones, I practiced making that switch.
That is good advice. But how long do I have to wait between scoldings if it is the same child? jk. That is really good advice, it is easy to go on and on in the heat of the moment.
ReplyDeleteYou are funny, Marcia, asking how long to wait if it is the same child.
ReplyDelete1. I don't think this advice was in the same book. Maybe another. But there was another paragraph that said sometimes a child doesn't hear until the third time, so I tried not to get angry if the person didn't jump at the first sound of my voice. I tested this out with candy. And in the case of the child I was testing it out with, that child did not hear me, or he would have come at the first hint, even a suspicious smell. I know, the _How to Behave..._ book would disagree, but this idea that you only speak once and the child has to do it is complicated by other factors, sometimes. Even as an adult, I sometimes don't hear what people say to me. Right now I am going on the premis, if they don't get eye-contact, it is probably not me they are talkiing to.
2. Now that I am through making those jokes (and some truth), I am going back to the question you raise when you say it is easy to go on and on in the heat of the moment. That made me laugh, too. Remember, I was reading this advice about 5 sentences or 25 words or less, whichever comes first, in a book designed to help parenting TEEN-AGERS. Some of the things my kids did, I thought they deserved lectures of at least two hours. I was going to say two days, but that might have been a little extreme.
So you can see that for me, cutting back to 5 sentences freed up a lot of spare time for me, at the very least
Arta