Wendy Thomas Russell - ParentShift: Ten Universal Truths That Will Change the Way You Raise Your Kids

Praise for ParentShift

Linda and Ty Hatfields heart-centered approach, presented in this book with Wendy Thomas Russell, helps parents develop the skills to move beyond punishment and rewards, sidestep power struggles, and strengthen the parent-child relationship... ParentShift works because it changes the way you SEE your child. It should be on every familys bookshelf.

LAURA MARKHAM, author of Happy Parent, Peaceful Kids

A must-read for parents, caregivers and grandparents. The authors give practical, down-to-earth options for the everyday issues, conflicts, and roadblocks that we all experience, while helping our children become responsible, resilient, resourceful, compassionate human beings who know how to thinknot just what to think.

BARBARA COLOROSO, author of Kids Are Worth It!

ParentShift exposes the fake news of the necessity to discipline and control children, and replaces it with the true news that children are harmed by domination and thrive on connection, unconditional love, and respect. While quoting the work of many reputable authors and researchers of the last fifty years, the authors provide parents an incredibly powerful and clear system to shift their way of being from gut reactors to intelligent responders and from getting compliance in the moment to ensuring the child unfolds into a highly self-esteemed, self-reliant, loving, and thriving person.

NAOMI ALDORT, author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves

If you want a deeply connected, heart-centered relationship with your child, you owe it to yourself to learn from these masters. ParentShift is one of the most comprehensive and time-tested parenting books around. If you have only one parenting book in your library, this should be the one.

VICKIE FALCONE, author of Buddha Never Raised Kids & Jesus Didnt Drive Carpool

The best thing about ParentShift is the enduring focus on how its actually the adults behavior, rather than the childs, that is most predictive of healthy development. We must grow ourselves before we grow our children. Brilliant!

VANESSA LAPOINTE, author of Discipline Without Damage

Im delighted to endorse a book so thoroughly devoted to a win-win approach to parenting, one that takes the needs of both parents and children into consideration. Youll find loads of tips, charts, examples, and brief assignments along with easy-to-read text written with empathy and good humor. Here are some of the best tools available to help you build the best possible, mutually respectful, and loving, life-long relationships with your kids.

JANE BLUESTEIN, author of The Parents Little Book of Lists

Parenting without punishment, threats, rewards, or bribery seemed like a fantasy until Wendy Thomas Russell enrolled in Ty and Linda Hatfields Parenting from the Heart course, which draws from Adlerian psychology and its offshoots. In ParentShift an upbeat, modern guide with classic rootsthe coauthors give parents a loving alternative... ParentShift presents a thorough set of adaptable ideas. Here, thoughtful parenting comes down to being willing to grow and change right alongside children.

Foreword Reviews

A beautiful manual for parents who desire positive change in the parent-child relationship. The depth and scope of this work is profound, vast, and life-changing. Not to be read only once, a resource like this provides valuable support throughout time.

LYNETTE ANDERSON, director of Hilltop Preschool, Huntington Beach

PARENTSHIFT 2019 by Linda & Ty Hatfield and Wendy Thomas Russell.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews. For information, contact the publisher at www.brownpaperpress.com or at the address below:

Brown Paper Press

6475 E. Pacific Coast Highway, #

Long Beach, CA 90803

FIRST EDITION

Designed by Alban Fischer and Gary Rosenberg

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019900772

ISBN : 978-1-941932-10-0 (print)

978-1-941932-11-7 (ebook)

For our children
Kristen, Kari, Kelly, and Maxine

Contents

Introduction

I met Ty Hatfield twenty years ago. He was a police officer, and I was a journalist covering the court system in Long Beach, California. Ty was well known in the newsroom as a mild-mannered, thoughtful cop especially skilled at dealing with juveniles, whom he treated with an unusual degree of patience and compassion. Hes one of the good ones, I remember thinking.

Six years later, when I became a parent, Ty invited me to enroll in a parenting class he had launched with his wife. I politely declined. In my world, the phrase parenting class most often was preceded by court-ordered. I knew I wasnt perfect, but I didnt think I was a bad parentmuch less a criminally bad one .

A few years later, when my daughter, Maxine, was three, Ty again invited me to join the class. Ill keep it in mind, I told him. And then I didnt. I was certain my husband, Charlie, and I were doing fine on our own. And, deep down, I still believed most parenting classes were for child-abusing misfits.

Then, something happened. When Maxine was going on five, I started to notice that some of the disciplinary methods wed been using with decent successstern warnings, sticking to our guns, raising our voices, timeouts, taking her toys away, and so onwere falling flat. The tantrums, which wed believed to be a toddler thing, had become more frequent and intense. Power struggles were on the rise. I wasnt enjoying my kid as much as I had before, and my husband and I seemed often to disagree on the basics: What was an appropriate response to her meltdowns, and what wasnt? What constituted undermining each other, and what didnt? When, one day, I found myself in my kitchen, listening to Maxine wail in her bedroom and staring at the stack of Barbies Id taken away from her because shed refused to stay in timeout for the allotted four minutes, I started feeling anxious. Is this really how parenthood is supposed to be? I wondered. Am I missing something?

Thats when I called Ty.

Were ready, I told him.

Generally speaking, people dont change their beliefs or behaviors until they become personally unsatisfied with said beliefs or behaviors. Id reached that point.

Hopefully, I told Charlie, well pick up some new tools.

Now, looking back on that first day in class, its impossible to explain the veritable fireworks display that Ty and Linda set off in my brain. The buzz stayed with me for hours, weeks, years. Its with me today.

What I found in that room was an entirely new approach to parenting, backed up by science, research, and facts. Sitting there, among a handful of other parentsnot one of them a hardened criminalI suddenly saw the big picture. How everything fit together. Linda and Ty didnt just offer a few new tools; they provided an entirely new toolboxone that was organized so well, so thoroughly, and so completely that I was guaranteed a solution to almost any problem.

The Hatfields have spent their adult lives exploring the fundamentals of successful parentingTy as cop and father, and Linda as an elementary school teacher and mother. They started their company, Parenting from the Heart, in 1999 and have since ushered hundreds of parents through some of those families most difficult times. Their program is a carefully constructed latticework of knowledge and advice inspired by the work and wisdom of the greatest parenting experts of our timemany of whom you will meet in the pages of this book.