This book offers many situations where you can put yourself into your child's position and find out how he/she feels. There are role-plays for the same purpose and other exercises.

When you are through with the whole book you don't just know some new ways to deal with your kid's, you also know exactly why you want to use those new ways. I call it "Love in action".

Each chapter has two parts:

1. Explaining the challenge and giving a solution with examples, little cartoons to illustrate, and exercises to practice the principles. The exercises help you to understand and to change your old habits.

2. Comments, questions and parents' stories.

See yesterday's Marriage Tip for this section.

This is a very valuable chapter that addresses the issue of cooperation. Parents can often get into an interaction pattern with children that amounts to either (1) making them do what they don't want to do or (2) stopping them from doing what they do want to do. This can make the parent into the "enemy".

Some examples of the first are: "Wash your hands." "Hang up your coat." "Do your homework." "Brush your teeth."

Some examples of the second are: "Don't jump on the bed." "Don't eat with your fingers." "Don't play in the dirt."

Examples of What Does NOT Work: 

Blaming and accusing

Name-calling

Threats

That's just three out of the ten ways described in the book that don't work. A few others are Lecturing and Moralizing, Warnings, Sarcasm, Comparisons, and Martyrdom Statements.

What Does Work For Engaging Cooperation?

1. Describe what you see, or describe the problem. - "There is a wet towel on the bed."

2. Give Information - "Milk turns sour when it isn't refridgerated."

This is two of the five ways the authors offer. (They do work. I've tried it.)

Come back tomorrow for this one.