Energy Drain: Consequences for Children

Consequences for Children: In our fast-paced world, none of us has the time or energy to use this parenting style. 

 Instead of approaching parenting this way, Love and Logic parents try to keep it simple. For one reason, something that is simple is something that we can remember during stressful times. 

 Love and Logic parents find it easy to remember that anything that causes a problem for the parent drains energy from the parent. That energy needs to be replaced in some way.

Three Different Parenting Styles

Drill Sergeant | Helicopter | Consultant Were you raised by a “Drill Sergeant” always telling you to “Jump,” and you asking, “How high?” or were you raised by a “Helicopter” always hovering, ready to swoop in and rescue?  Did you ever think about what kind of a message these parenting styles send to your kids? […]

Don’t You Know You’re Supposed to Behave Today?

For many years now, my children have unwittingly been actors in a drama… the play could be titled “Kerry’s Fantasies.” These fantasies consist of dreams and stories created by a much younger me in which my children are happy and well adjusted, squeaky clean and smiling. In this dream, there is an act by the […]

This is Not a Dress Rehearsal

On my kids’ first day of school this year, I first dropped off my high schooler. Gasp. How can I have a kid that old? I always thought being the parent of a high schooler was for grownups! Heck, I remember when I thought that having a child in elementary school was for grownups. As […]

Quick Tips for Dads

1.  Speak Your Family’s Love Language Read The Five Love Languages of Children, a quick, interesting book to improve how you express love to your family. Want to know the secret to making sure your child feels loved? Kids desperately need to know how much you love them. But if you don’t know their special […]

Blessings Box

Ten years ago, when my children were young, we began a ritual that the whole family still enjoys today. It all started because I wanted to teach Joshua, then age five, and Joel, then age two, about thankfulness in a way that was more fun and tangible than simply lecturing, “Be thankful.”The idea took shape […]

Disarming Defiance

For parents who deal with children being obstinate, defiant and challenging, here are a few thoughts on power struggles: If we deal with resistance by struggling back, not only will we damage our relationship with our kids and set them up to be rebellious, but we will be very frustrated.  It is a child’s JOB […]

Everybody Does Better with Family Meals

You know that family meals are important, and the research backs up what you know. Adults who have regular meals eat better, are healthier and are slimmer. Children and adolescents who have regular family meals do better nutritionally, socially, emotionally, academically and with respect to resistance to excess weight gain, drug abuse and early sexual […]

“I’m Bored”

How often do you hear this? And how often are your kids happy with the suggestions you make? Typical parents say, “I hear it often, and the kids are never excited with my suggestions.” I know a man who says that he once made the mistake of telling his parents that he was bored. For […]

How Do I Get My Preschooler to Stay in Bed?

Question from a Mom:“My husband and I are disagreeing about the best way to get our three 3 year old to  stay in bed. I wonder if you can point me in the right direction to find information from Love and Logic on bedtime struggles with young children.”  Answer:Use the Love and Logic skill of choices to […]