The Well Behaved Child
I recently had the opportunity to read a book on parenting by parenting expert John Rosemond, titled “The Well-Behaved Child”. While we have been fortunate enough to have fairly well behaved children ourselves, the contents of this book have been really informative for us, and we have already implemented several of his suggestions.
One great thing about this book is that is it full of practical advice and examples. Many books of this type dwell on theory for most of it’s pages, but “The Well-Behaved Child” spends a bulk of it’s time on practical how-tos of parenting.
Rosemond is admittedly old-fashioned in his ideas on parenting, and it is clear that he doesn’t subscribe to the parenting suggestions of psychologist from the past 30 years or so on how to parent. I have to say that I agree with him whole-heartedly in his assessment of parenting and how much we overuse drugs to make children behave in today’s society.
At the heart of his advice is this: Problems are not solved unless the person who can solve the problem has the pain of the problem on their shoulders. Parents can’t make the kid mind by being the one with the worry, but if you make the child feel the pain of misbehaviour, and have the responsibility of correcting it, discipline works much of the time. The forms the basis of his “Agony” principle, where the person who feels the agony will be the person who solves the problem.
There is much more in this treasure of a work. Every parent should read this (probably on a regular basis).
(Disclaimer: I was provided this book as part of a book review service. This did not in any way influence my opinion of the material)