I started reading parenting books forty-four years ago. That's how long I've been parenting. But just lately I "retired" from my position of actively parenting minor children. My youngest (of thirteen) just turned twenty-one. In the beginning, I was reading parenting books to learn how to become the best mother I could be, and to learn how to eliminate the temper tantrums of my first child. I didn't find any tantrum-elimination solutions in any of the parenting books I read, however-or in any of the parenting seminars I attended either.
I figured out by myself what techniques worked to eliminate temper tantrums when my fifth baby was fourteen months old. (All of my children had thrown tantrums up to that point in time.) Once I had discovered what needed to be changed in my parenting techniques with my fifth baby, I applied the same and additional techniques with my last eight children from the time they were born, and I totally prevented temper tantrums in them. Also, I discovered through this process that all of the parenting books I had previously read had steered me wrong in dealing with temper tantrums. Parenting books that advised about temper tantrums typically described them as inevitable and unpreventable, and usually told parents to ignore them. Besides learning, with child number five, that temper tantrums are totally preventable, I learned that ignoring tantrums ensures they will recur.
From my experience, I also learned not to automatically trust parenting advice from "experts." I learned to assess what they had to say about parenting children before I accepted it. And I recognized that I had discovered what they had not.
I also came to appreciate that as people set themselves up as "experts" in a helping relationship, it includes a connotation that they are the ones who are functional, educated, wise, and healthy-and that the people they advise are dysfunctional, uneducated, unwise, and unhealthy. This is one more reason I don't like using the title "expert." I much prefer to view myself as a mentor (or a wise and trusted teacher or advisor). This implies that the wisdom is valid and the trust is earned, and does not imply that recipients of the mentoring are unwise.
It's taken me thirty-three years to prepare for (partially by getting a bachelor's degree in psychology and women's studies) and to write about my temper tantrum prevention and elimination techniques in my first parenting book. This is the parenting book I wish I could have read forty-four years ago, starting out as a parent. But it's only now been written.
I figured out by myself what techniques worked to eliminate temper tantrums when my fifth baby was fourteen months old. (All of my children had thrown tantrums up to that point in time.) Once I had discovered what needed to be changed in my parenting techniques with my fifth baby, I applied the same and additional techniques with my last eight children from the time they were born, and I totally prevented temper tantrums in them. Also, I discovered through this process that all of the parenting books I had previously read had steered me wrong in dealing with temper tantrums. Parenting books that advised about temper tantrums typically described them as inevitable and unpreventable, and usually told parents to ignore them. Besides learning, with child number five, that temper tantrums are totally preventable, I learned that ignoring tantrums ensures they will recur.
From my experience, I also learned not to automatically trust parenting advice from "experts." I learned to assess what they had to say about parenting children before I accepted it. And I recognized that I had discovered what they had not.
I also came to appreciate that as people set themselves up as "experts" in a helping relationship, it includes a connotation that they are the ones who are functional, educated, wise, and healthy-and that the people they advise are dysfunctional, uneducated, unwise, and unhealthy. This is one more reason I don't like using the title "expert." I much prefer to view myself as a mentor (or a wise and trusted teacher or advisor). This implies that the wisdom is valid and the trust is earned, and does not imply that recipients of the mentoring are unwise.
It's taken me thirty-three years to prepare for (partially by getting a bachelor's degree in psychology and women's studies) and to write about my temper tantrum prevention and elimination techniques in my first parenting book. This is the parenting book I wish I could have read forty-four years ago, starting out as a parent. But it's only now been written.
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