Love & Logic

So, my life has totally been changed by a new parenting philosophy that I have been implementing into our house. It's called Love & Logic and it's the best thing that's happen to me as far as parenting guidance goes. Love & Logic basically takes away any negative feelings between the parents and the kids and puts all the "blame" onto the choice that the child made by using a "strong dose of empathy" and a consequence...no explaining, no scolding, no lecturing, no 1,2,3, and most importantly NO ANGER!!!

A very close friend of mine called me awhile back and told me that she had started reading this book and felt spiritually impressed to recommend it to me (thank you Debbyee, you saved my life!). Shortly after her phone call, Clay's preschool sent home a Love & Logic course sign-up and I decided to go ahead and do that and get the book. I am so glad I did. I have never been so successful with my boys; they listen more often, help out, are doing chores, earning allowance, and learning real-life lessons and how to problem solve on their own. But this is all icing on the cake; the cake itself is the change it has wrought in me! I rarely raise my voice or feel angry with the kids anymore, I feel HAPPY about being a mom, and I finally feel like I have some idea of what I am doing! Not to say I don't still get frustrated; I'm still learning L&L so I don't have all the tools yet but I just can't express how happy I am that I really like my kids all of the time.

I highly, highly recommend this book/class to every mom out there. I will share just one success story with you:

A week ago, my brother Josh and I took the boys to the park. When it was time to go I gave Clay the choice of leaving now or leaving in 10 minutes (L&L uses lots of choices to help teach problem solving and to make it easier for kids to allow parents to put their foot down on certain "non-choices"). Of course, he chose to leave in 10 minutes. After 10 minutes I told him it was time to go and he threw a mini-fit then smiled his I'm-going-to-do-something-wrong smile then booked it in the opposite direction (he is a runner!). I just smiled back just as big and said, "Uh-oh" (this is his empathetic statement) and turned to leave. I'm not exaggerating that kid was on my heels in 5 seconds flat! He would have NEVER EVER done this before!!!

I feel like L&L combined with personal and family prayer/scripture study and FHE will lead to a very happy and righteous family.