DadTalk

Helicopters

Jim sits in the airport awaiting a flight, watching as a mother gives at least eighty differant demands to her three-year old boy over the course of an hour without enforcing one of them:

"Don't go over there Logan"

"You better listen to me Logan or else"

"I mean it Logan"

"Don't run Logan"

"Come back here so you don't get hurt Logan"

Logan eventually finds his way to where Jim is seated. The child smiles at him while ignoring his mother. The mother yells "Logan, you get over here this instant"

Jim smiles down at Logan and asks "Hey Logan, what is your mom going to do if you don't go over there"

Logan looks up again "She not goin' to do nothn'." And then his eyes twinkle and his grin becomes wider.

So starts one of the best books I've ever read on parenting: Love & Logic by Foster W. Cline and Jim Fay (http://amzn.to/d51hT0). While other parenting books have been helpful this one has been the most revolutionary to our parenting. The principles that Cline & Fay unpack are so profound I've found that they have even affected the way that I relate to other adults. I'm going to spend a couple of posts unpacking what I've learned from the book.

It starts by outlining three ineffective and one effective parenting style

Helicopter Parent: Parents who think that love means revolving around their children. These parents are always rescue and clucking around their children. Forever running forgotten lunches and sports kits, paying for broken items, intersecting other children and adults: not a day goes by when they're not protecting little junior from something.

The problem is that kids raised by helicopter parents have never learned the big lesson that life does not run on the bail-out principle. Parking tickets, overdue bills, irresponsible people, lost jobs - these and the other normal events of adult life do not disappear because of a loving benefactor. Helicopter parents fail to prepare their kids to meet that kind of world

Drill Sergeant Parent: These loving praents feel that the more they bark orders the better their kids will be in the long run. These kids are constantly told what to do. Their worlds are filled with put-downs and I told you so's. Kids of drill sergeant parents when given a chance to think for themselves often make horrendous decisions. But it makes sense - these kids have never had a chance to think for themselves. They've been ordered around all their lives and never had a chance to learn when the consequences were less costly.

Helicopter parents send the message: "You are fragile and can't handle life without me" Drill Sergeants send the message "You can't think for yourself so I'll do it for you"

When I started reading the book to my horror I immediately realised that I was the drill sergeant parent! How about you?

To be continued...