School Doesn't Teach You How to be a Parent.

Lately I have been wishing there was a mandatory class you have to take before becoming a parent. We have recently been getting into the "discipline-woes" as I like to call them. With SO much text out there on parenting and discipline, you have to wonder: "Where do I start?!!" We began our journey of learning how to discipline Bennett by just winging it. It didnt take us long to learn that our strong-willed, hard-headed, and very independent (almost 21 month old) wasnt responding to what we were doing. We were at a loss as whether or not to spank, to explain to him what he did wrong, to give choices, etc. We werent sure just how much he really understood about why we were punishing him. We were (and still really are,) clueless.
So, in the midst of learning how to manage our little one, we were introduced to a book called Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood. Essentially, the basis of this book is learning how to give your child choices (that you can live with) and teaching him/her how to use their brain when in a situation that calls for a different response than the one they have used. The ideas behind this text are wonderful! I think they will be a great asset to us, but not until Bennett starts to use language more and begins to be able to reason. (around 3+). If you have preschoolers around this age, I highly recommend it.



You can find it on Amazon for fairly cheap here:http://www.amazon.com/Love-Logic-Magic-Early-Childhood/dp/1930429002

This book just wasnt working for us. We then tried the "counting method." When Bennett was doing something we didnt want him to do, like whining, we would give him a "1" if he didnt stop, 5 seconds later, he got a "2" and if he still continued to do whatever it was he got a "3" and 2 minutes of bedroom time (time out). This seemed to work okay for a couple of days and then he just became immune to it. He didnt mind bedroom time because there are toys in his bedroom he can play with. He would just walk inside his bedroom, turn to me and say "bye bye." :/

After two attempts at discipline (in ways that didnt come natural to me,) I decided to try one last thing. I just happened to come across the book Parenting By the Book by John Rosemond on the ABCJLM preschool curriculum creators blog. She raved about it, so I thought we would give it a go. Rosemond's claim is that the reason that children are so "out of control" these days is because we have stopped disciplining them in the way that our grandparents and great grandparents disciplined their children. We have become child-centered families instead of God-centered families. We center our lives, marriages, etc. around our children. This kind of focus leads to children who feel entitled, and are in a sense, "out of control." My eyes have been opened to how we have been listening for so long to all this nonsense about parenting, when we have the greatest resourse at our fingertips: the Bible! Rosemond teaches about how we must turn back to the scripture and rely on the Lord for guidance when it comes to raising and disciplining our children, not some psychologist that just wants to give a diagnosis. I am only about 3/4 of the way through this, but let me tell you, I am excited to finish it and use what Ive learned!

This can be found on Amazon as well: http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Book-Biblical-Wisdom-Raising/dp/1416544844/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367090240&sr=1-1&keywords=parenting+by+the+book



And to each of you I say, good luck and happy parenting!