Have a New Kid by Friday

I have one chapter left of the first parenting book I'm reading "Have a New Kid by Friday". So far I would say the basic idea of this Leman guy's book is that everything that is wrong with your kids is...well, your fault as the parent (he doesn't come right out and say that, but its fairly obvious) Therefore, most likely everything that is wrong with me could have been avoided had my parents had better parenting techniques (I'm not totally sold on this idea). He says you need to be sneaky about implementing your parenting strategies and consistent. I am NOT consistent, and neither were my parents. Actually, one thing I do like about his book, is the idea of coming up with a strategy to deal with a type of situation, instead of for every situation. I feel overwhelmed trying to come up with rules for EVERYTHING, especially since I don't feel like I can anticipate every possible scenario. I like the idea of having a specific disciplinary action for things like: being defiant, doing your part around the house, working things out with each other, etc. I like the idea of saying things once and not repeating myself, but I do need to make sure my 3 year old caught what I said to her. I like the idea of putting things back in the child's court, and not making all choices and outcomes my decision, but letting them learn on their own. One thing I noticed is that he says parents need to build relationships with children (which is similar, if you ask me, to Dr. Sears attachment parenting concept).

I really like that Dr. Leman seems like a normal human being. I get sick of reading parenting books by people who act like they are perfect and they are spilling the beans about how you can be perfect, too, if you follow their formula. Alas, I have never been the perfect type. In fact, my biggest gripe with Dr. Leman's 5 day program, is that-there is no way I can change ME in 5 days, I can pretend I'm perfect, which always turns into a disaster, I just hold in all my anger and then I explode, or I am just generally angry a lot of the time and I'm just keeping it at bay. I think anger is like a hormone or adrenaline, when its in your blood-your high on it, you have no idea how to get rid of it. When it isn't around you feel fine, as if it never even existed, I can remember being angry, but I don't feel the feeling of anger anymore. Does that make sense? Nonetheless, I don't think I can be anger free in a week, I need to get some self-help books on anger management I guess... not a bad idea anyway (It is no wonder that Emma gets mad so much, I hope she can forgive me later in life for this terrible flaw I have. I hope I will learn to deal with it, and she will see the change in me, so that she can see that a person has the ability to change things they don't like about themselves... that sounds ideal.)

All in all, I would suggest this book as a keeper. It has like 100 ideas for different situations you might be dealing with. The basic concept of the parenting style feels a little too harsh for a 3 year old and an 18 month old, but could still be useful to a degree. I feel like this young age is still at teaching stage, I can't say "Go clean your room", I'm still teaching what it means to clean your room, we are still doing it together, so she can learn. At some point, when I can see she gets it, I will let her take on more "responsibility", but for now, she needs me to be with her, I think that is half the joy of work-is working with other people.

We also came up with a new phrase "Love is not leverage". A lot of times, I feel like denying my love to a child to punish them for doing something wrong. I think that I like the idea of building a relationship of love; and any disciplining along the way is my saying I love you enough to give it to you straight "No", no nagging or threatening, just tell it like it is, and keep on loving them. Especially since kids want to push moms buttons, its so much fun. I need to realize, they love me enough to annoy the heck out of me, they bug me because they like me. I met this lady once who had a red-headed, strong-willed 10 year old daughter. Her daughter was helping out at a baby shower. The mom says to me, with her daughter in full ear shot, " Oh, she is so obnoxious". But she said it in the most lovingly annoyed way possible, it was so natural, so funny. Her daughter looked so proud to be such a nuisance to her mom. It was so ... cute. Now that I have kids I'm starting to realize what she was doing... this woman was giving her daughter love by being semi bugged (not frustrated, not angry... more like happily bugged). Her daughter seemed to me to be a very confident, happy, well behaved girl... I'm not sure I saw anything obnoxious about her, but she was quite proud of the label she'd been given. Everyone loves to tease mom, she is fun to pick on, and this mom was strategically letting her daughter enjoy teasing her. Calling your child obnoxious may sound like a terrible thing to say, but the way it all went over was actually very impressive. I could tell she had not spoken that comment for my sake, but for her daughters listening ears.

Okay so this was my first parenting book review... I don't know if I really conveyed what I was thinking, but I tried :)