Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Parenting Styles

Liza and I had a pretty deep conversation the other night that really got me thinking.

What, exactly, is my parenting style? What are my rules? What are my black, white and grey areas concerning my kids?

I'm reading a FANTASTIC book right now called Making Your Children Mind Withou Losing Yours.

I am totally in sync with this book. I realized that I was already doing a lot of the things in it, and it is giving me ideas of way to correct myself.

I will probably be quoting from this book a lot.

One thing that has helped recently is what to do when they cry and throw a fit. I had tried yelling, whipping, time out - you name it.

But the book suggested that you simply remove them from your presence. They are doing it strictly because they know you are watching.

So now when the crying/whining starts, I simply pick him/her up, calmly tell them that they need to stop, put them in their room and let them know that when they calm down, they can talk to me.

Little man is my most STUBBORN one. Last night I had to put him back in his room 8 times before he quit crying. But it worked. With no beatings and my blood pressure barely went up.

Whew. Now, if I stick with it...it should work.

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