Kevin Leman - Making Children Mind without Losing Yours

How Does a Typical Day Begin
in Your House?

Do you spend twenty minutes trying to get your youngsters up and ready for school while your three-year-old throws a tantrum?

Do your kids refuse breakfast, hassle you about the clothes youve set out for them, then complain about the lunches youre packing?

Have you lost control before the day even begins?

Dr. Lemans action-oriented method puts you back in command. He shows you:

How children learn

How to be the authority in your home without being authoritarian

Why reward and punishment no longer work

Whyand howreality discipline does

Filled with real-life incidents and familiar anecdotes, here is real, practical help and freedom from confusion. Start using reality to teach your children on a day-to-day basis. Begin to make your children mind lovingly, wisely, and well.

Making Children Mind
without Losing Yours

Making Children Mind
without Losing Yours

Dr. Kevin Leman

1984, 2000 by Dr. Kevin Leman

Published by Fleming H. Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

Ebook edition created 2010

Ebook corrections 04.15.2016 (VBN)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-1671-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Living Bible , copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton,Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified kjv are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations identified niv are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Quotations from God, the Rod, and Your Childs Bod by Larry Tomczak. Copyright 1981, 1982 by Larry and Doris Tomczak, published by Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission.

To Kristin Leman OReilly,

our middle child and second daughter,
who endured many hand-me-downs
and far fewer pictures in the family photo album.
Your contagious smile, your sensitivity to others,
and your love for God make me proud to be your daddy.
May you enjoy this book when rearing your own little
ankle biters! Youll do a great job.
I love you, Krissy. God bless you.

Contents

Part 1
Why Reality Discipline
Will Work in Your Home

1
Its a Jungle Out There!
Grab a Vine

Raising a child these days can be very scary.

In horror I watched the reports of the shooting spree in Littleton, Colorado, where teenagers were gunned down in their own high school. A few months later, a shooter invaded a preschool in Southern California. These incidents grabbed headlines, but in many urban areas drive-by shootings are too commonplace to get much press. Everywhere, children are at risk. And who knows what tragedies the new millennium will hold?

But its not just bullets Im worried about. Kids are being held hostage by coarse TV shows, violent video games, and valueless schools. Can they come through all of that with sweet spirits and strong morals, with self-confidence and concern for others? Is it possible to bring up good children in such a crazy age?

Sure, its possible. But its still scary.

Many parents I know worry that they are the danger, that somehow theyll do something terribly wrong, warping their children for life. They fear that theyll be too demanding or too permissive, too clinging or too distant. They end up paralyzed in their parenting, unable to help their children grow because theyre too afraid to do anything.

I remember how petrified I was when I held my first child. She was a bundle of joy but I cradled her like fine china, fearing that Id hurt her. And the fact is, in the twenty-seven years since then I did make mistakes, and so did my wife. Im sure we hurt little Holly in certain ways, but we also helped her grow. Now shes a beautiful young lady, newly married, the head of a high school English department. Whew! We made it!

Of course we cant take too much of a breatherthere are four other little Lemans right behind her. At this writing, our youngest is seven, so were still in the thick of the parenting business. And its still scary, especially as we see the world changing around us.

But Ive got great news for you: You are going to make mistakes in parenting just as Sande and Kevin Leman didguaranteed! You may not make the same mistakes, but youll make plenty. I still remember one day when my eleven-year-old daughter looked up at me angrily and said, You know what you ought to do? Read your own book! Mistakes are part of the journey called parenting. But the good news is that you can learn from them. You can improve your parenting, building responsible kids and building joyful relationships with them.

Hillary Rodham Clinton took the title for her book from an old proverb: It takes a village to raise a child. The saying makes some sense, I guesswe can all use others help in caring for our kids. But the problem is, its not a village, Hillary. Its a jungle out there. Were just swinging through, grabbing vine after vine, holding on for dear life. And we dont need the community to raise our kids, we dont need the schools to do it, we dont need the government telling us how, we dont even need churches to do our child rear ing for us... we need parents to step up and do it. And we need everyone elsecommunity, school, government, churchto support the parents in their efforts.

Thats my challenge to you. Step up to the plate and be a parent. Decide that your family is your most important calling and commit yourself to it. Take the job of caring for your kids. It wont be easy. It wont always be fun. But it will be worth it.

Youll never be a perfect parent. You dont even have to be a great parent. But Im urging you to take the time and effort to be a good parent. You can do it. This book can help.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

The time has come for an idea I call reality discipline. Its a consistent, decisive, and respectful way for parents to love and discipline their children. (Notice I said discipline and not punish. I said love and not smother love.) Reality discipline steers a course between an authoritarian style and a permissive style, giving kids some choices but also holding them accountable.

Im as happy as anyone that we no longer live in the Dark Ages when children were supposed to be seen and not heard and heaven help them if they let out a peep. Im also re-lieved to see that we no longer wallow in the overpermis-siveness of the 1950s and 1960s, which saw many parents being led astray by the notion that disciplining their children would inhibit their little psyches.

Now I see many families groping between those two extremes. As a family therapist, I talk to parents and their children every week. I also travel widely to speak to parents and teachers about child-rearing, discipline, and guidance. What I see and hear is that, in too many homes today, otherwise sophisticated and educated parents are still not sure they know the difference between discipline and punishment, between permissiveness and loving nurture. Theyre asking questions like: