Parenting Without Power Struggles, Susan Stiffelman (M.FT). ISBN: 9781451667660
Read August 15, 2013
Nonfiction: parenting.
This was an excellent read. Very clear, and very specific
instructions on WHAT to do (and also what not to do, although I like
that she focuses on the positive - no "don't think about pink elephants"
here, which was very nice) and WHY it is that it's good to do. She's
also amazingly clear that these interactions are challenging to do, hard
to keep up, and really difficult to get right in real life, with real
children. I admire that approach. I also like that her example texts
don't have children who magically become compliant and happy as soon as
the magic words are used, which is a fault in a lot of the parenting
technique books I've encountered.
I do have some quibbles - I could have used a lot more of the
information in Chapters 1-8 and 10, and a little less in the others.
I especially feel like she shortchanged the reader on the contents of
Chapter 10 dealing with depression and anxiety. If/when I have kids, I
know that the best way to help them is to have my own depression and
anxiety under control so I feel geninely happy around my kid. I also
know that given the way my brain works, there's no way in hell that's
actually going to happen. So a little real-life advice on how to
counteract that would have been lovely. Same with the Act 1/Act 2
advice. That was very hastily done, and not as clear as it could
perhaps have been. I'm also not as fond of mindmaps and assigning
emotions to colors and whatnot, so all of the slightly "woo" bits did
ruffle my feathers a bit, but there wasn't much of it - I'm just
super-sensitive to that sort of thing.
Overall, well-organized, well-explained, and well-done. I'm
actually going to buy a copy for myself and my husband, and I have only
done that with two other parenting/child-development books so far.
Good company! (The others are Beth Grosshan's Beyond Time Out, and Paul Tough's How Children Succeed.)
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