Dr. Kevin Leman’s humorous writing style will make reading this book a breeze. He goes straight to the heart of the matter in this book, helping parents in crisis deal with their disrespectful, disobedient children in only five days.
Guess what? It’s not the children. It’s you. The parent. That’s right. You have been tolerating the mouthy monsters and the eye-rolling routines of your children. You have been swinging from one extreme to the other in your parenting style – from being permissive to being an authoritarian. OK, so maybe you haven’t, but that’s what Dr. Leman says.
No wonder your children are confused and think that anything goes until it doesn’t, but then mom or dad calm down and it’s back to no respect for them because they love me and they will give me anything I want.
The middle ground – the place where parents should strive to walk on – is called authoritative parenthood. You control the purse, the car, the TV, the internet, the play dates, the toys, everything. Use all this to your advantage. The children have nothing. Nothing. They are simply children.
You have everything. The parent. You own everything in their lives and can control every aspect of it. Including meal times? Yes. They will eat lima beans if they are hungry. Yes, they will.
The thing is, children must be loved no matter what they do. The relationship with them comes first. They should feel they are accepted and loved by their parents at all times. At the same time, they need to have a sense of responsibility and thankfulness for all the things you provide for them.
If they feel entitled to everything and they lack for nothing, you are doing something wrong. He gives you exactly what to do for the first five days and then you start applying everything you learned. The most important thing is you don’t yell, lecture, or coax them into doing anything. Once you state what they have to do, if they refuse, you let it go.
Chances are, a few minutes later, they will come to you with a request. Maybe it’s time to get into the car to go to soccer or it’s time for their afternoon snack or it’s time to go over to John’s house for a play date. Guess what, Junior? Not gonna happen. WHY, oh why, mommy? Because of the way you disrespected and disobeyed me earlier. Calmly, state your case and stand your ground. Then, let it go. Don’t lecture them. Don’t give in, either.
This is a great book if you have the courage to change the disrespect and disobedience around your house. But if you don’t, then don’t waste your time reading it. The second half of the book is simply a question and answer format – because Dr. Leman knows there are many different situations in parenting.
