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kslhersam's review against another edition
4.0
I liked the overall idea of raising independent kids who know how to take responsibility for themselves. Some of the example dialogue was pretty silly though. I would never talk to my child as weirdly as their examples. It sure gave me some things to think about in regards to 13 year old.
morgan3wade's review against another edition
1.0
This book has many 5 star reviews and I honestly cannot figure out why. It opens with a story about a woman tricking her son into thinking he’s going to jail and tells the officer to put him in with pedophiles and sex abusers. That isn’t loving or logical, and I almost put the book down right then. Since I have several friends who love this book, I decided to keep reading.
The overall ideas such as not yelling, natural consequences, and giving teens responsibility make sense. But they don’t encourage building a strong relationship as a backbone to this, and they give many horrible examples and bad advice.
They encourage throwing a 15 year old out on the street, and then encourage putting your kids on the streets or threatening to several times throughout the book. The things they say to the kids do not sound loving, such as “it’s an irritation to be around you”, and the conversations in general are so fake and forced and will not go like that in real life. So what will you say when your kid doesn’t happily comply after you tell them they’re gonna live on the streets?
Instead of teaching basic human decency, like we should have compassion for each other in this house and do things for each other, they say “well I pay the mortgage so you have to do this.”
Some specific issues I had were the abstinence based stance they took, telling kids they will become infertile if they have sex too early, supposedly a random doctor wrote to this woman and congratulated her on her daughter being a virgin??? They say it’s okay to say to a gay child “I hope you will live a heterosexual life” and say that is still accepting them. They suggest kicking kids out or calling the police on them (and in my opinion that does not take into account that police encounters can be dangerous or the fact that they now have a record that is hard to bounce back from particularly for non-white people). They praised someone who left their kids alone because they were annoying her and made them figure out and pay on their own for a taxi. They say “cocaine is distributed to kids in almost every elementary school” ???! They tell a girl she will be raped and cut up and another girl she’ll be beat up and raped. I do encourage talking about risks with kids, but the way they do it is not at all with love. Parents have an obligation to feed their children, even if they spend all their allowance, and we shouldn’t say “you can get food out of the fridge when you pay for it” when they know the child has no money.
This book had no love or logic in my opinion and I can’t understand how it has been so praised.
The overall ideas such as not yelling, natural consequences, and giving teens responsibility make sense. But they don’t encourage building a strong relationship as a backbone to this, and they give many horrible examples and bad advice.
They encourage throwing a 15 year old out on the street, and then encourage putting your kids on the streets or threatening to several times throughout the book. The things they say to the kids do not sound loving, such as “it’s an irritation to be around you”, and the conversations in general are so fake and forced and will not go like that in real life. So what will you say when your kid doesn’t happily comply after you tell them they’re gonna live on the streets?
Instead of teaching basic human decency, like we should have compassion for each other in this house and do things for each other, they say “well I pay the mortgage so you have to do this.”
Some specific issues I had were the abstinence based stance they took, telling kids they will become infertile if they have sex too early, supposedly a random doctor wrote to this woman and congratulated her on her daughter being a virgin??? They say it’s okay to say to a gay child “I hope you will live a heterosexual life” and say that is still accepting them. They suggest kicking kids out or calling the police on them (and in my opinion that does not take into account that police encounters can be dangerous or the fact that they now have a record that is hard to bounce back from particularly for non-white people). They praised someone who left their kids alone because they were annoying her and made them figure out and pay on their own for a taxi. They say “cocaine is distributed to kids in almost every elementary school” ???! They tell a girl she will be raped and cut up and another girl she’ll be beat up and raped. I do encourage talking about risks with kids, but the way they do it is not at all with love. Parents have an obligation to feed their children, even if they spend all their allowance, and we shouldn’t say “you can get food out of the fridge when you pay for it” when they know the child has no money.
This book had no love or logic in my opinion and I can’t understand how it has been so praised.
v10's review against another edition
2.0
So. I have some very mixed feelings about this book.
It did contain some helpful parenting advice.
It also contained a lot of religious nonsense.
Most helpful advice for me: Consider whether the issue you're having with your teen is actually your problem. (Teen being disrespectful, or not doing household chores: your problem. Teen not doing homework, or smoking while away from home: not your problem.) No major changes yet, except in my stress level, because I can tell Kid my opinion/suggestion, but ultimately most decisions are theirs.
Most ridiculous religious bit: Parents discourage their daughter from premarital sex, then when she was engaged and got her first pelvic exam the doctor *wrote to her parents congratulating them because she was still a virgin.*
Was this book written before HIPAA was a thing? And I realize that doctors are affected by their own biases as much as the rest of us, but how are you an OB/GYN and don't know that virginity is a social construct.
It did contain some helpful parenting advice.
It also contained a lot of religious nonsense.
Most helpful advice for me: Consider whether the issue you're having with your teen is actually your problem. (Teen being disrespectful, or not doing household chores: your problem. Teen not doing homework, or smoking while away from home: not your problem.) No major changes yet, except in my stress level, because I can tell Kid my opinion/suggestion, but ultimately most decisions are theirs.
Most ridiculous religious bit: Parents discourage their daughter from premarital sex, then when she was engaged and got her first pelvic exam the doctor *wrote to her parents congratulating them because she was still a virgin.*
Was this book written before HIPAA was a thing? And I realize that doctors are affected by their own biases as much as the rest of us, but how are you an OB/GYN and don't know that virginity is a social construct.
katecutup_lovesbooks's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
2.75
Honestly I love the love and logic approach, it teaches kids to be accountable while expecting parents to be understanding and empathetic. It was also a very fast-paced and easy to read/understand book. However I couldnt give it any higher than a two for the misinformation printed about sex and gender roles, which I find to be highly irresponsible. I think that the authors need to make it obvious that this parenting approach has been formulated with their personal religious beliefs in mind (which you wouldnt know by reading their bios or the back of the book). Its not because its religious that I marked it down, only because the advise given out on sex and gender is not based on actual studies/research/child development facts, but religious ideals and that needs to be made CLEAR to the reader or left out all together, in my opinion.
thronin's review against another edition
5.0
I'll always use "It's a bummer" and "What are you going to do about it?" in my parenting!
rodrigues's review against another edition
1.0
This is the most horrific parenting book I have ever read. I agree with the basic premise of kids learning from natural consequences. However, the examples in this book are 1. Often not cause and effect but rather manipulation or raising the stakes to make failures as painful and difficult to recover from as possible.