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How To Behave So Your Children Will, Too!
I FOUND THIS TO BE A VERY VALUABLE BOOK. IT HAS HELPED ME IMMENSELY WITH MY CHILDREN. 'JACK CANFIELD, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR. CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL. Are you tired of repeating everything four times to get your children to listen? Do your children spend hours in front of the TV and only minutes doing homework? Do you feel guilty because your children don't behave? Do you give in to your children to stop the whining? If you have said YES to any of these questions, this book will save your sanity. HOW TO BEHAVE so your children will too! Teaches you how to teach your children to behave, how to listen and how to be more co-operative It shows you how to be consistent and manager your anger. It explains how to prevent arguments and power struggles. It will make discipline simple and your life easier. You will even learn how to enjoy being a parent.
- GenresParenting
285 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
5 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 28, 2014
The main thing I took away from this book is that with your kids you should focus on the positive side. Compliment them on what they do, and they'll want to do those things more. Tell them what they're good at. Be supportive. Be friendly. Don't always be looking for misbehavior, instead look for things they're doing that are good. I think this is good advice for all relationships, from your friendships to your marriage.
There were many things I disagreed with, but it's good to read about different ways of doing things and it also made me feel great that my kids are basically no trouble compared to the examples of children in the book.
A lot of the book focuses on how to get your kids to clean their room and do other typical chores, but personally I find that just not being bothered about whether their room is clean or not works best for us. It's their room, so it's their responsibility and I don't have any need for it to be cleaned, any more than they have a desire for my room to be clean. They'll clean it when they want to - or they won't, but it doesn't affect me. My parents did the same with me. There were times when my room was a mess and you couldn't see the floor and there wasn't a single clear surface to set something down on. Now, though, as an adult, I keep my room spotless. Or I don't. It doesn't matter.
There were many things I disagreed with, but it's good to read about different ways of doing things and it also made me feel great that my kids are basically no trouble compared to the examples of children in the book.
A lot of the book focuses on how to get your kids to clean their room and do other typical chores, but personally I find that just not being bothered about whether their room is clean or not works best for us. It's their room, so it's their responsibility and I don't have any need for it to be cleaned, any more than they have a desire for my room to be clean. They'll clean it when they want to - or they won't, but it doesn't affect me. My parents did the same with me. There were times when my room was a mess and you couldn't see the floor and there wasn't a single clear surface to set something down on. Now, though, as an adult, I keep my room spotless. Or I don't. It doesn't matter.
February 11, 2025
- Remember to look for positive behaviour and provide positive feedback. Reward with positive attention rather than negative attention.
- "Seeing you get angry is not a punishment. It is a reward! When you get angry at misbehaviour, you are teaching your child how to have control over your emotional state of mind."
- "Think before you talk, Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Follow through." Don't use empty threats and teach your kid that they don't have to pay attention to you.
- "Children must know what you expect from them and what they can expect from you." Be specific with expectations (and reasonable)
- Prepare for situations where there might be misbehaviour. Discuss and plan with your kids. What will happen if they misbehave? What do they think is fair?
- Be specific about what the problem behaviours are. How often do they occur? What triggers them? How do you want your child to behave instead?
- "There are times when we dislike our children because their misbehaviour makes us feel so inadequate and miserable."
- "Discipline is teaching children to make decisions. The purpose of discipline is teaching children to be cooperative."
- Father's Day and Mother's Day: why not Brother's Day?
- "Consistency teaches children what to expect. It teaches children how to predict the consequences of their actions. Once a child can predict the outcome of his behaviour, he will kea better choices. Making better choices is the key to developing responsibility."
- Explain the punishment: "I am not trying to hurt you or make you angry. You are being punished because you made a poor choice about your behaviour. I want you to learn from this so you will think differently next time."
- Teenagers: "This is the time in your life when you want to make your parents happy. You want them to trust you. You want them to believe you are a good student. You want to get good marks. You want to do a good job on your chores. You want to be polite and kind. You need to be home by the agreed time. You want your parents to think you are an extremely responsible person. Because when they think you behave responsibly, then they will trust you. Then good things will happen in your life. They will allow you to do more activities because they know they can trust you. You may not believe this, but your parents really do want to do nice things for you."
Severe is very keen on incentive and punishment structures. There is some limited mention of how this can be a problem and how to avoid some of the pitfalls. All misbehaviour is regarded as intentional and avoidable, and consistency is prized above all else - cutting your kid some slack is equated to slack parenting.
The book is very motivational in making you think you can solve all misbehaviour by remaining calm and being absolutely consistent with your response. Seems exhausting though, and maybe too transactional. Definitely some useful ideas to implement, and a good reminder to review my own behaviour as a parent, assess the specific problems, and create a plan for addressing them.
- "Seeing you get angry is not a punishment. It is a reward! When you get angry at misbehaviour, you are teaching your child how to have control over your emotional state of mind."
- "Think before you talk, Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Follow through." Don't use empty threats and teach your kid that they don't have to pay attention to you.
- "Children must know what you expect from them and what they can expect from you." Be specific with expectations (and reasonable)
- Prepare for situations where there might be misbehaviour. Discuss and plan with your kids. What will happen if they misbehave? What do they think is fair?
- Be specific about what the problem behaviours are. How often do they occur? What triggers them? How do you want your child to behave instead?
- "There are times when we dislike our children because their misbehaviour makes us feel so inadequate and miserable."
- "Discipline is teaching children to make decisions. The purpose of discipline is teaching children to be cooperative."
- Father's Day and Mother's Day: why not Brother's Day?
- "Consistency teaches children what to expect. It teaches children how to predict the consequences of their actions. Once a child can predict the outcome of his behaviour, he will kea better choices. Making better choices is the key to developing responsibility."
- Explain the punishment: "I am not trying to hurt you or make you angry. You are being punished because you made a poor choice about your behaviour. I want you to learn from this so you will think differently next time."
- Teenagers: "This is the time in your life when you want to make your parents happy. You want them to trust you. You want them to believe you are a good student. You want to get good marks. You want to do a good job on your chores. You want to be polite and kind. You need to be home by the agreed time. You want your parents to think you are an extremely responsible person. Because when they think you behave responsibly, then they will trust you. Then good things will happen in your life. They will allow you to do more activities because they know they can trust you. You may not believe this, but your parents really do want to do nice things for you."
Severe is very keen on incentive and punishment structures. There is some limited mention of how this can be a problem and how to avoid some of the pitfalls. All misbehaviour is regarded as intentional and avoidable, and consistency is prized above all else - cutting your kid some slack is equated to slack parenting.
The book is very motivational in making you think you can solve all misbehaviour by remaining calm and being absolutely consistent with your response. Seems exhausting though, and maybe too transactional. Definitely some useful ideas to implement, and a good reminder to review my own behaviour as a parent, assess the specific problems, and create a plan for addressing them.
August 9, 2013
The basic premise of the book is that a child's behavior depends largely on the parent's reaction to said behavior. If you don't like their behavior, change your reaction and the behavior will follow.
As a person with somewhat of a parenting book addiction, I rate this as one of the better ones. Avoids the two most common pitfalls of parenting books: vague platitudes and a preachy tone from the author.
This book gave solid, specific advice that you can easily adapt to other situations like it. Some points I found most worthwhile:
- insights on the use of incentives in parenting
- how to motivate kids with sincere compliments while still correcting, say, the crappy job they did sweeping out the garage - they probably won't even know they're being corrected if you do it right
- how to encourage kids to develop pride in their own work and having that, rather than praise from others, be their motivation for doing a good job
Easily one of the 5 best parenting books I've come across. I'd recommend it for anyone with kids, even those that are well-behaved to begin with.
As a person with somewhat of a parenting book addiction, I rate this as one of the better ones. Avoids the two most common pitfalls of parenting books: vague platitudes and a preachy tone from the author.
This book gave solid, specific advice that you can easily adapt to other situations like it. Some points I found most worthwhile:
- insights on the use of incentives in parenting
- how to motivate kids with sincere compliments while still correcting, say, the crappy job they did sweeping out the garage - they probably won't even know they're being corrected if you do it right
- how to encourage kids to develop pride in their own work and having that, rather than praise from others, be their motivation for doing a good job
Easily one of the 5 best parenting books I've come across. I'd recommend it for anyone with kids, even those that are well-behaved to begin with.
March 29, 2008
Great book. Helped us a lot with Jaxon. Probably a book every parent should read.
June 14, 2008
I didn't find this book on discipline to be very helpful. It mainly applies to older kids and didn't seem very insightful.
November 7, 2008
This is probably the best child behavior book I have read in all my work related reading.
November 29, 2010
Informative, maybe practical (just not practical for those of us that are not good at stick-to-it-iveness!!!) ...
January 6, 2016
I am actually having a lot of success from this book, hallelujah!! :-) Granted I am just starting and still really working on it, but I feel like it is possible.
March 17, 2016
This is an excellent resource for parents and teachers alike. There are great suggestions for behavior modifications, monitoring, and feedback.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews