Love and Logic

I just finished reading, "Love and Logic", by Foster Cline and Jim Fay.  It is by far my favorite parenting book, and the one that Nason and I are definitely going to be using as our  primary "go to" from now on.

The general premise of it is that kids need to grow up learning how to make wise and sound decisions FOR THEMSELVES.  That the concept of personal responsibility doesn't come automatically...it comes from practice.  That parents who solve all of their kids problems for them, ultimately teach their kids....suprise....that other people should solve their problems for them, and then...surprise....those kids live the rest of their lives EXPECTING other people to solve their problems for them.

Anyway, I could go on and on, and before I knew it, I'd just end up re-writing the whole book for you in this blog post.  It's REALLY, REALLY good though, and if you have kids, I HIGHLY recommend it.  Every time I sat down to read it, I made sure I had my highlighter in hand, and I pretty much ended up highlighting the entire book (or at least that's how it felt).

I really want to make sure that I REMEMBER and IMPLEMENT the things I read, so this week, I decided to go back through the book, and each day, specifically focus on ONE of the concepts that I had highlighted when I read the book the first time.  I think I will continue on with this method, so that the information stays fresh on my mind, and so that I am daily putting into practice what I've read.

So this week, the five concepts I focused on were:

1) "The challenge of parenting is to love your kids enough to ALLOW them to fail.  To stand back, however painful it may be, and let SLO's (significant learning opportunities) build our children."  
   One really practical way I've been trying to apply this with Gunnar (and sometimes failing, because it's HARD), is to not go out of my way to try to prevent him from getting a certain consequence or discipline that he deserves.  For example, if I warn him once to not do something, and tell him that if he does it again, it will be a time out, my tendency is to either KEEP warning him, so that he doesn't forget, thereby receiving the punishment due him, or remove him from the situation so that it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE for him to disobey.  Basically, protecting him from the consequence of his own action. So I've been really mindful to simply tell him once, and after that, step back, and let the cards fall where they may.

2) "Parents who raise responsible kids spend very little time and energy worrying about their kids' responsibilities.  They worry more about how to let the children encounter SLO's for their irresponsibility.  


3) "Parents who abide by Love and Logic principles are sympathetic, but they don't solve their kids' problems.


4) "Children don't become what we (as parents) think they can, and they don't necessarily become what they think they can.  They become what they think we think they can."  
   I can see this playing out in a lot of different ways as Gunnar becomes older, but one way I think it can really apply to us right NOW, is this:  a lot of times, I automatically expect that Gunnar is going to disobey me. So I'll tell him to do something, and then instantly start reminding him of what the consequences will be if he DOESN'T obey...which probably conveys to him that I don't really think he's capable of obeying the first time.  And honestly, most of the time, I really DON'T think he is.   So my goal this week was to change my mindset, and EXPECT obedience from him....assume that he WOULD obey, and then be disappointed if he didn't, versus assume that he WOULDN'T, and then act like, "yep, that's about what I expected you'd do".

5) "When we parent with love and logic, we emphasize a powerful combination: letting our children fail  in non-threatening situations, while emphasizing their strengths"

I'm telling you, this book is sooooooooooo good.  Teaching Gunnar how to make decisions for himself (GOOD decisions for himself), and giving him a sense of personal responsibility, are two of the very biggest character qualities that we want to make sure we're instilling in him.

I've got to be honest...this stuff does NOT come easy for me, and I really suck at a lot of it so far.  I WANT to fix things for Gunnar, and I WANT to protect him from hard, "unfair", and difficult things, and so a lot of times, I do.  I totally buy into what this book is saying though, and I'm determined to change my ways!

Look for 5 more "tidbits" to be posted on here next week (or don't, and raise unloved and illogical kids.  It's your choice really.  Ha haaaaaaaa)