Parenting with Love and Logic

I have been re-reading Parenting with Love and Logic, it's such a  great book!  I read it for the first time years ago before I had even gotten married or had kids.  I was going to become a teacher and I was studying child development at the time. The book was chalk full of great ideas to help teach kids and many of them I put into practice when I had my own children.  I had been feeling like I should pick it up again though so I found it at our local library and dove into it.  The author talks a lot about raising kids to be responsible, but as I have gone through the book again I got something different from the first time I read it.  I am an absolutely firm believer that kids are amazing and intelligent.  Most of the time they know so much more then we give them credit for.  I think as parents we fall into this routine of doing everything for them because they come so small and helpless that they need that.  After a year or so of doing EVERYTHING for them it's hard to remember that they can do things on their own now.  Abigail is two and she really wants to dress herself.  It's so much faster to do it myself, and I kind of have to bite my tongue and sit on my hands as she struggles through it.  We don't like to see our kids struggle and when it is so much faster to do it ourselves, well, life can get terribly busy and I'm often short on time.  Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you about is chapter three.  In chapter three the author talks about the way we phrase our words and how vital it is to phrase them a certain way.  Like I said, kids are smart.  They know when it's cold, when they want food, and they can make good choices, they LIKE to make choices.  When it was cold outside I'd say, "Get your coat, it's cold."  I think my kids might have felt sort of stupid because I phrased it in a way that said they didn't know if it was cold and had to listen to me.  Now I ask them if they want a jacket or not.   It seems like such a small things, but phrasing my requests/demands as a question has improved my relationship with my kids drastically.  Feeling like you have the power to choose, and even better, to make good choices is a very empowering feeling and has helped my boys gain confidence.  The book says to let kids make their own choices when the consequence is acceptable, I won't let Abigail choose to play on the sidewalk or on the road because getting hit by a car is not an acceptable consequence, but getting a stubbed toe because they chose to go barefoot is an acceptable consequence.  sometimes when I need them to make a specific choice, like getting in the car the choice is, "You you want to climb in your self, or would you like me to carry you?" I have tired to stay away from I told you so's as well, instead asking question to get them thinking.  Why did you stub your toe?  How can you protect your feet next time?  Because they are choosing for themselves they are also learning faster and honestly, rebelling less, less anger and digging their heels in.
One of my greatest wishes for my kids is that they are confident.  If letting them make their own choices will help them build that confidence then I am willing to sit back and let them learn, even when it's a hard lesson they must learn.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who works with or has kids.  Changing the dialog in our home, is just one of the small changes we have made, but it has had a HUGE impact on all of us.

Stay tuned next week for "Making your expectations clear so they know what you expect and only have to do the chore once."