Book Review #34 - Parenting With Love and Logic

I have heard so much about Love and Logic style parenting that I thought I might already know all there is to know about it and didn't even need to read the book. On the off chance I was wrong, I checked it out.

Turns out, I knew very little. I had heard about the "give choices" aspect, but there were plenty of ideas that were brand new to me.

Written by a child psychologist and physician, Love and Logic is a parenting philosophy that seems to use Zen techniques to avoid angry confrontations with children and teach them personal responsibility through natural consequences. To teach them, a parent must never dictate what that child must do but rather manipulate, er...help, that child to decide between two acceptable outcomes. If a young child has a tempter tantrum when you tell them it's time to leave, instead of physically taking over or allowing your child to turn the situation into a never-ending negotiation, you ask, "Would you like to leave here with your feet on the floor or your feet in the air?" Supposedly, the freedom to choose solves all problems.

I don't disagree. I think there is much to be said about the dignity and responsibility of choice. I don't doubt that when run to perfection, the Love and Logic technique produces lovely, independent, resourceful children and more. The trouble I have is that it requires parents....me....to do our jobs flawlessly.

I'd love to implement Love and Logic techniques into our home. Sadly, as one of the adults that is required to make this work, I am also equipped with emotions that do not always bring out the most mature responses. Sometimes, when my children are being unreasonable, I lose my patience. No where, and I mean no where, did I see a situation in where a parent was allowed to do that. Our emotions and subsequent response to each and every situation needs to be calm, neutral and delivered with a robot matter-of-factness. The line the authors give if unable to think of an appropriate response is, "I love you too much to argue." Huh.

Another complaint I have with Love and Logic is that there doesn't seems to be a situation where the authors feel that the natural consequence wasn't the best consequence. If your child sleeps in, then they miss school. They can't bother you because that's not part of your day and if you need to leave then they have to pay for the sitter and they have to face the consequences at school for having an unexcused absense. In the very next chapter, the consequence for staying up late was being tired because you wake them up at 6:00 - no matter what. Wait. I agree that a consequence of staying up late is being tired the next day but what was that whole chapter about missing school?

The authors explain these consequences as paying a price. They argue that the price for learning these things is small and affordable when our children are young and much more costly if they are forced to learn these things as teenagers or, worse, adults themselves. I agree, and would even let my children stay up late or "pay" for an unexcused absense, but when one of the authors (I can't remember which one) wrote about teaching his 12 year old foster son about being on time and telling him, "I'll pick you up at 5:00 and will stay until 5:03. If you're not there then I'll come again at 10:00 and stay until 10:03. If you're not there then I'll come again at 7:00 in the morning." The boy missed the 5:00 pick up and only came out from behind a wall as he was about to drive off at 10:03. Was he seriously going to leave a 12 year old out all night long? To teach him about being late? Yikes. That sounds like a call to CPS to me, not good parenting. While we have to teach and train, we also must keep them safe and a 12 year old is not equiped to stay out all night.

Reading the book is just the tip of the ice berg. I find it ironic that the authors of Love and Logic bill this philosphy as "effective and easy to learn" but have also marketed the book into dozens of other, more detailed books, classes, movies, programs, websites and pamphlets. And, I don't think they are money wasted because as I have tried to apply what I learned from reading the book, I have found myself hitting all sorts of walls. It didn't answer all my questions and I need more information. That doesn't seem exactly "easy to learn."

As far as reading goes, the book is well organized. The first half takes you through the step by step reasoning behind the theory. The second half is separated into dozens of "pearls" which address specific "what if" situations. Even with those dozens available, my own particular, "what if" wasn't included. I'd love to know how to effectively help my oldest son stop being so hard on himself. But there was no pearl on what to do when your child says, "I'm an idiot." when I point out something he misspelled on his spelling homework. Somehow, saying, "I love you too much to argue" doesn't seem like the best response.

A great book club choice. This is a book that could be discussed all night. Probably even all year.