Lisa Stiepock - toughLove: Eighteen Top Experts Share Proven Strategies for Raising Confident, Kind, Resilient Kids

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Names and identifying characteristics have been changed and some individuals described are composites.

Copyright 2016 by toughLOVE International LLC

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First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition October 2016

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Cover design by Amy Iorio and Tracy Chow

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stiepock, Lisa, editor.

Title: ToughLove : raising confident, kind, resilient kids / edited by Lisa Stiepock with Amy Iorio and Lori Gottlieb.

Description: New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2014015010 | ISBN 9781476733265 (pbk)

Subjects: LCSH: Parenting. | Parent and child.

Classification: LCC HQ755.8 .T677 2016 | DDC 649/.1dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2014015010

ISBN 978-1-4767-3326-5

ISBN 978-1-4767-3327-2 (ebook)

For Allan and Alcy, Ralph and Trey, and Zachary

Why does the world need another parenting book? Why do I as a parent need to read this particular parenting book? And what is toughLOVE anyway?

Lets get right to it: Why does the world need another parenting book?

We know the parenting world today is not the parenting world it was for our parents. The crazy thing is, its not even the parenting world it was just yesterday. Weve never had more good, interesting, relevant science and research to explore in the realm of child and teen development than we do right now, and weve never had all of this great information coming to us 24-7.

Parents need help getting the best of this information when and where we need it most: at our kitchen tables where our kids are doing homework, on our family room couches where theyre Snapchatting and texting their friends. I dont know about you, but perhaps nothing has helped me more in particularly bad parenting moments than being reminded why my child is acting the way she is. That, for instance, my thirteen-year-old daughter is throwing a three-year-old-style tantrum for the same reason she did when she was three years old: shes separating from me again and its no less painful or annoying now, but its just as necessary. Part of the engaged-parenting-me wants to help her in that quest (the other part needs a time-out with a glass of wine and a hot bath).

Which brings me to: Why this particular parenting book?

Because its written by the people who can best help us navigate all the developmental science, studies, and surveys. The chapters are by practicing therapists, teachers, and coaches, who are also parents themselves. They are giving us the most practical of advice, in that it comes with real stories from their own home lives and those of their patients (the names changed, of course, to protect the harried and sleepless). Its why I can sleep at night when I realize that while I am a recovering helicopter parent, its okay for me to show my eight-year-old son crazy amounts of love as long as I also hold strong on limits and boundaries.

One of the earliest things we learn in our roles as our childrens first teachers is how much better they take in information when we show them instead of just telling them. It turns out that works when raising parents, too!

In addition, this is one parenting guide that doesnt stop when the going gets toughest: when our kids turn into preteens and teens. They may be pushing us away the hardest now, but they really do need us the most. Theres nothing for preschooler parents in here, but theres everything for parents of kids in kindergarten all the way to college.

So what is toughLOVE anyway? Its what scientists and researchers tell us we need in order to raise the happiest, healthiest kids who will become the strongest, most secure adults. Its about being both kind and firm. Setting limits while giving as much age-appropriate freedom as possible. Its about respecting your children for who they are while giving them the consistent boundaries they need to become confident, resilient grown-ups; preparing them for adulthood while protecting them from growing up too quickly. Its about putting an end to power struggles and creating a peaceful, harmonious home life.

Youre thinking easier said than done ? True! This is a guide for parents who honestly believe that parenting is the most important job theyll ever havewhich is most parents we know. Its for parents who want to be engaged and informed, without smothering or helicoptering; who are students of parenting in the way they want their kids to be students of the world, curious and critical. It is a parenting GPS, but only if you apply to it your own GPIgut parental instinct. Because all this great science is confirming what weve always known: parents know best because they know their kids best. All this expertise and all these stories simply help guide us to do what we know is best for our own kids; they help our gut instincts be the informed ones that get us through the tricky, trying moments, even the tricky, trying years.

Lisa Stiepock (mom of Alcy) and Amy Iorio (mom of Trey)

Right now! Here are ten toughLOVE tenets to get you started. And, keep in mind, this book is a tiny piece of the parenting bonanza that is toughLOVE. Take a look at toughLOVE.com and Mom.me, where we are raising great parents with up-to-the-minute information from the contributors in this book and many more. Its a community of parents struggling with the same things you are and sharing their strategies for success, as well as their moments of mind-bending failure!

toughLOVE TIPS

Ten toughLOVE tenets

1. Kind and firm go together. Both kindness and firmness are essential for kids to feel safe and cared for. Research shows that this balance is the most effective way to raise kids who thrive. Studies consistently find that teens who perceive their parents as both kind (responsive) and firm (demanding) are at lower risk for smoking, using marijuana, drinking alcohol, and being violent, and that these kids have a later onset of sexual activity. Other studies have correlated a teens perception of parenting style (kind and firm versus autocratic or permissive) with improved academic performance, higher self-esteem, independence, and self-reliance.

2. Parenting isnt a popularity contest. Many parents today are afraid of doing somethinganythingthat their kids wont like. As a result, they endlessly negotiate, appease, or just plain ignore bad behavior. What these parents dont understand is that not only is it okay for our kids to hate us at timesits actually healthy! It shows them that we are there for them, even when they dont like us because we said no.