Negotiation Generation
Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment
By Lynne Reeves Griffin (Berkley, $14 paper)
The author doesn’t believe in punishment. Nor does she believe in negotiating every aspect of daily life with your children. Griffin, an RN and child-development consultant, harks back to a time when parents were parents, children were children and “limits were clear, adults were in charge.” If all are on board with that, the need for punishment vanishes.
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1. “I can give you this guarantee: The more you shy away from creating clear boundaries, the more discipline issues you will face.”
2. While children will adopt a host of role models throughout their lives, parents are the first and most important. “You have the power to set the stage for what your child believes a good role model should be.”
3. If you’re fighting for control in your home, you’re fighting. Nobody, neither child nor parent, wants that.
4. “If your child is looking for direction, guidance and clear authority from you and you won’t make a decision, he’ll take the decision-making power into his own hands and decide for both of you.”
5. Parents should consider themselves teachers rather than disciplinarians.