coverjudger's review against another edition
5.0
Honestly this is a book I could probably read 2 or 3 more times. I need this reminder. It’s so so good and has me remembering why I’m going the gentle parent route. It’s hard but it’s so important. Loved it!
karenisreading's review
5.0
This book is absolutely perfect. Most of the things here are also found in other gentle parenting books but I love that it is concise and easy to read
silvia_linn's review against another edition
2.0
Audiobook only: the narrator is a soft spoken British woman who reminds of the guy on headspace which I use regularly to help me sleep. Both are affective and driving was difficult as a result.
This is not one of my favorite parenting books by far. It was ok. Her methods are basically just to let kids do what they do and you just try to remember that they’re kids and can’t control themselves. She usually uses seven as an age where children can begin to understand natural consequences and eek out ideas why they shouldn’t do something. My son is four and is beginning to grasp this pretty well. There are other stupid things such as how she parents her teen son. He went over his screen time by an hour, was asked what his consequences should be, he decided he’d lose the next day’s time. Then he remembered that his friend was coming over then and they wanted to play a game. He asked to move it back a day and she said yes. Fine, but then she says to not have done so would have made it a punishment and punishments are not supposed to be used. Nah, I’d call that a natural consequence.
There were some helpful things. I do need to remember that I am harder on my child than anyone else. I do need to aim to start transforming my own habits and reactions first. I do need to model the behavior I want and recognize if I yell, my kids are more likely to do so.
This is not one of my favorite parenting books by far. It was ok. Her methods are basically just to let kids do what they do and you just try to remember that they’re kids and can’t control themselves. She usually uses seven as an age where children can begin to understand natural consequences and eek out ideas why they shouldn’t do something. My son is four and is beginning to grasp this pretty well. There are other stupid things such as how she parents her teen son. He went over his screen time by an hour, was asked what his consequences should be, he decided he’d lose the next day’s time. Then he remembered that his friend was coming over then and they wanted to play a game. He asked to move it back a day and she said yes. Fine, but then she says to not have done so would have made it a punishment and punishments are not supposed to be used. Nah, I’d call that a natural consequence.
There were some helpful things. I do need to remember that I am harder on my child than anyone else. I do need to aim to start transforming my own habits and reactions first. I do need to model the behavior I want and recognize if I yell, my kids are more likely to do so.
pharp's review against another edition
I think this book can be summarized by, 'be empathetic,' 'be patient.' Might be better for a parent who is struggling with anger, but that's not me.
carriepond's review against another edition
5.0
My review has the caveat that I just finished AND my baby is only one, so I haven’t applied the concepts. BUT, I really appreciated how this book was organized— the first several chapters giving information and background about child development and behavior to lay the groundwork for the rest. Then a few chapters that lay out why certain types of traditional discipline don’t make sense in light of those developmental and behavioral limits and— what I found most helpful— how some of those can be tweaked to be more developmentally appropriate. Then the rest of the book applies gentle discipline techniques to specific categories of behavior that parents are likely to confront— violent behavior, lying, not doing things when asked, etc. I found it very easy to read, and her ideas really resonate with me. I checked this out from the library, but could see myself buying it so I could turn to it later for quick reference and a refresher.
mdrfromga's review
3.0
You can find some useful suggestions in this read. I think what was most helpful is the focus on understanding what's contributing to undesirable behavior, not just reflexively trying to correct it.