posted
Okay, my husband checked this sucker out. I started reading it but got pretty depressed by the "do not teach" philosophy when it comes to responsibility.
By the way, if you read the book a while back, I'd love to hear your comments even if you don't have time to read it right now.
Also, this book so far seems to be aimed at getting tough when you are wimpy. Is their going to be any advice about loosening up if you're a guy?
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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But it has been ages ago now. I don't even rememeber everything it taught -- except I remember that I didn't agree with most of it... :-)
But then again.... I've never been one to take kindly to other people telling me how to raise my kids.. FG
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posted
MT, I'm a Becoming a Love and Logic Parent facilitator. I've been using Love and Logic with my kids for about 3 years and have been teaching it for a little over a year.
I'd really recommend taking the class if you have one close. Lots of churches teach it (that's how I got into it) and it may be a lot less expensive that you'd think. Our church just charges for the workbook, which is $10. There are some people who teach the class for a living, but those classes will be expensive. If you'd like, you're welcome to email me and I'll help you find a facilitator in your area. Or you can call the Love and Logic Institute and they'll be able to hook you up.
For "loosening up" read the section on Drill Sargeants and Helicopters. Sometimes it makes sense to be tough -- but *never* tough without compassion. Can you give an example of a situation that needs some loosening up?
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Where exactly are you? I'd imagine that SoCal would have a lot of facilitators. The L&L Institute keeps a list of certified facilitators...but that doesn't mean that the facilitators are holding classes currently. I can call them and ask for the list in your area (or you can) and then it's a matter of calling down the list to see if they're holding a class currently.
Their number is 800-338-4065 if you'd like to get the list yourself. But I really am more than happy to do the calling if you'd like.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Totally my pleasure. I called and they're going to send me the list. I'll let you know what I find out.
Edited to add: MT, as it happens, I have a pretty current list of facilitators in Utah. A friend asked for it not long ago for her brother who lives in SLC. It would be easy enough to check around for you also if you want.
posted
I have heard bits and peices about it. Maybe I will check it out from the library. I need a few tools though I admit, I have never been one to go gung-ho on any one book.
Posts: 1021 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
romany, I totally agree with that outlook. Pick what works and run with it. I don't see how any one book, or even one philosophy of childrearing can possibly fit all families. I like L&L because it gives lots of ideas for how to deal with situations, both specific and general. I'm not a huge fan of the book, mostly because it doesn't have the life that the audio CDs and videos do. It's why I recommend the class instead of just the book alone. There's nothing like having a real live person to talk with and other parents to connect with in getting ideas and enthusiasm for parenting.
Rivka, there's a class starting March 2nd in Palmdale. Is that too far for you? It's Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:30 and costs $40 for the 7 week course. I can give you the contact and phone number of the facilitator if you're interested. I've left messages at a few other places too, so hopefully I can find one closer to your zip.
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posted
I may have thumbed through it a few years back, is that the book where the parents are supposed to exaggerate the natural consequences of actions?
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
No. It's where you let consequences do the teaching when it's safe, and have empathy when they are understandably upset by the learning experience. As in, you don't let your kid get run over by a car just to teach him that running in the street is not okay. But you do let him spend three weeks of allowance on a cheap toy that breaks in 10 minutes of play (cautioning that it's doesn't look very sturdy), then have empathy for how upsetting it must be to have a favorite toy break, all the while biting your tongue and not saying "I told you so!".
It's about handing kids responsibility as soon as is reasonable, and letting them learn by experience. Which they will do anyway, if you think about it. Sooner or later.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: Rivka, there's a class starting March 2nd in Palmdale. Is that too far for you? It's Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:30 and costs $40 for the 7 week course.
Palmdale is over a one-hour drive and Wednesday nights are bad anyway . . .
quote: I've left messages at a few other places too, so hopefully I can find one closer to your zip.
posted
Oh my husband doesn't think I'm tough enough. So I'm reading the early chapters and thinking "I hope my husband never gets around to reading this." But we came from very different families. Most of the kids in my family were eerily well behaved because we lived in fear. I don't really know how it was in his family, but he seems certain that our kids have deep personal flaws like a tendency to lie. I guess I can acknowledge that this is probably true, but I also accept that I can't always know if they are lying or not so to promise them they will be punished if they lie seems really futile.
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quote:It's about handing kids responsibility as soon as is reasonable, and letting them learn by experience. Which they will do anyway, if you think about it. Sooner or later.
"Which they will do anyway, if you think about it. Sooner or later."
I think that's controversial. I think people can live and die and never come understand what complete jackasses they are and how neglectful of their responsibilities they have lived.
It's a is a form of "consequentialism." It's jargon, for the school of thought which understands that the rightness or the wrongness of an action can be determined by its manifest consequences.
Analytic philosophers and white guys ethicists love consequentialism because it makes sense if you have you understand the world everything as a matter of your doing, with an impoverished sense of responsibilities. It countenances all manner of atrocitious practices in the name of arriving at good consequences.
The paradigm counter-example is the guy who buys clothes from a sweatshop, without knowing about or caring or feeling the conditions that the worker had to be in in order to produce the clothes.
Mothertree:
If the only thing that's keeping kids from being bad is the fear that they are going to get caught or that something bad is going to happen to them, then I think we are all in a bad way.
posted
I think you mean "from being bad". But I think I know what you mean. Still, on the one hand you reject consequentialism and on the other you seem to reject the implications of... what, non-consequentialism? I mean, your last paragraph pretty much sounds like something from the book.
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Non-consequentialism is a bad term because even the word assumes the primacy of consequentialism. Consequentialism marries well onto some versions of Christianity, but then, if for some reason your child loses his faith and fear of eternal damnation, then he'll become a crook.
"Virtue Ethics" is appropriate term.
You do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because there are any consequences that will adversely affect you. you do so out of a sense of dignity, responsibility, propriety, thought, care, and self-respect.
Aristotle and Kant lay out a pretty clear version of virtue ethics in "Nichomachean Ethics," and "The Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals," respectively. Both those texts are good, but not immediately gripping. In a sentence, "Why you do" matters, in addition to "what you do."
Martha Nussbaum is reputed to be doing some good recent work, accessible and relevant, in this field and everything I read with any bite in has a footnote to one of her articles.
I think CT darn near got her PhD in just this, so she may be a better person to ask.
posted
mt: The thing about any parenting book or system or philosophy is that it only works if it works for you. (Duh.) Some moms cannot bear to think of letting their child go without a meal. Some moms don't have a problem with it, so long as their kid is generally well nourished. So when dinnertime issues come up, they're comfortable with saying, "Well, it was nice having you here for dinner while it was nice having you here. But it's not anymore. Please go to your room now. Thanks for understanding. See you later when we're all done." The moms who can't take their child going hungry might say instead, "Well it was nice having you here for dinner while it was nice having you here. But it's not anymore. I'm sure dinner will taste just as good for you in the garage where you can be as loud as you like. Please take your body and your plate there now. See you later when we're all done."
Either way is okay. The point is to take care of yourself while also making sure that the child isn't allowed unacceptable behavior yet treating him with respect. (The above would work with a kid who was used to Love and Logic and knew that a request to leave the table was not optional. I wouldn't try it as a first taste of L&L unless I'd planned ahead what I was going to do when the kid *didn't* leave the table as requested.)
Anyway...for lying. It depends on how old the kid is, but one thing I've heard some parents use is to have a very short conversation when everything is going well about how being a liar makes a person untrustworthy. No judgements of the kid himself, just a general conversation about it.
For example: My son and I have just finished watching his favorite show on TV. We're all snuggled up on the couch while the commercial is going. I notice that we're both in a good mood, so I bring it up. "Hey babe, I wonder if you heard about this thing that happened." "What?" (slightly suspicious) "Well, this kid named Peter went to his friends in a panic about some trouble he was having with a bully. But when his friends went to help, there wasn't any trouble, and Peter just laughed and laughed at what dummies his friends were to fall for it. Peter tried this a couple of times, thinking it was quite the big joke. His friends got all mad." "Yeah, so?" "So, his friends stopped believing him and then wouldn't come when Peter really *did* run into a bully and got beat up." "That sucks." "Yeah."
Subject dropped. Then I catch my son in a lie. I bite my tongue and galantly resist the overwealming temptation to lecture. I might say how that is pretty hard to believe. I'd like to believe him, but something on my Mom Psychometer says that it doesn't totally wash. And then when he does tell the truth, I have a hard time believing him. And so forth.
Real world situation: My son started fibbing about getting chores done that he really hadn't done. I caught him at it, mentioned it and then watched him while he did the chores. The next three or four times he went to do chores, after he finished, I'd have him show me. (I'm a little bit of a ham, and this works well with my son if I can get him laughing about it. I put on a totally imbecilic look and had him prove to me that the dishes were actually out of the dishwasher and in their cabinets. "I don't know if I believe you emptied the dishwasher. It looks like they might be put away, but MAYBE you put invisibility powder on them and they're still really there. (suspicious look) Where did you put them?" And he'd show me they were put away.
Another situation with lying: I have a rule about playing outside for my son. He can go anywhere in plain eyesight of the house. If I can see him from the porch, he's fine. Go outside that boundary, he needs to ask first. When he was 9 or so, I caught him in a lie -- he'd gone up to the neighborhood above ours without letting anyone at home know. I was upset because this was a safety issue. I thought about it a while and decided that my rule was a little unreasonable. It would be a bummer to have to go back to the house *every* time he wanted to go somewhere out of line-of-sight. So I bought walkey-talkeys and talked to him about it. The new rule was that if he was going out of line of sight, he needed to take the walkey talkey with him. And let me know where he was going. This solved the problem. I didn't like the lying, but preferred to solve the problem than concentrate on the lying. He's not generally given to lying, so it wasn't a chronic issue that really needed to be addressed.
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posted
Zan, I've read both. It depends upon what you want to get out of it. The one for pre-schoolers is nicely focused, so if you're wanting a L&L book that is pretty focused on Ryan's age, I'd recommend it. If you're wanting an overview of Love and Logic with an eye toward the future, the original Parenting with Love and Logic is probably a better choice. It goes over the principles more thoroughly than the preschool one. But it doesn't have as many applicable stories to draw from. And I think it's drier reading than Love and Logic for the Preschool Years.
If you like the book, Charles Fay did a two hour video on L&L for preschoolers, which I enjoyed quite a bit. The two other facilitators I share classes with found it boring and repetitive -- but they work with school age kids, not preschoolers. If you want to borrow it, I wouldn't mind mailing it to you with the promise you'd return it sometime within the next 6 months or so.
Romany, I'd be interested to know what you think of it when you've read it. I've been steeped in it long enough that I don't have enough of a new eye on the material and it helps me very much to have a fresh perspective when I'm facilitating a class. Even if you hate it, I'd like to know that, if you don't mind. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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