I started reading parenting books forty-four years ago. That's how long I've been parenting. But just lately I "retired" from my position of actively parenting minor children. My youngest (of thirteen) just turned twenty-one. In the beginning, I was reading parenting books to learn how to become the best mother I could be, and to learn how to eliminate the temper tantrums of my first child. I didn't find any tantrum-elimination solutions in any of the parenting books I read, however-or in any of the parenting seminars I attended either.
I figured out by myself what techniques worked to eliminate temper tantrums when my fifth baby was fourteen months old. (All of my children had thrown tantrums up to that point in time.) Once I had discovered what needed to be changed in my parenting techniques with my fifth baby, I applied the same and additional techniques with my last eight children from the time they were born, and I totally prevented temper tantrums in them. Also, I discovered through this process that all of the parenting books I had previously read had steered me wrong in dealing with temper tantrums. Parenting books that advised about temper tantrums typically described them as inevitable and unpreventable, and usually told parents to ignore them. Besides learning, with child number five, that temper tantrums are totally preventable, I learned that ignoring tantrums ensures they will recur.
I learned to not trust expert parenting advice automatically, without first assessing it, or testing it out. I realized right away after discovering the secret to eliminating temper tantrums with my fifth child, that I had learned something the "experts" hadn't.
I came to see that as people set themselves up to be the "experts" in helping relationships, there is the accompanying connotation that they are the wise, functional, educated, and healthy ones, and their advisees are unwise, dysfunctional, uneducated, and unhealthy ones. This is another reason I don't like the use of the term, "expert." I prefer to use the term, mentor, which can be defined as a wise and trusted person who teaches or advises. This definition implies that this trust is earned and the wisdom is valid. It does not imply that the advisee is unwise.
It's been thirty-three years in the preparation (partly with getting a bachelor's degree in psychology and women's studies) and in the writing of my first parenting book, which shares what I learned about preventing and eliminating temper tantrums. This book has the kind of information I wish I could have read forty-four years ago, at the beginning of my parenting career. But it's only just now been made available.
I figured out by myself what techniques worked to eliminate temper tantrums when my fifth baby was fourteen months old. (All of my children had thrown tantrums up to that point in time.) Once I had discovered what needed to be changed in my parenting techniques with my fifth baby, I applied the same and additional techniques with my last eight children from the time they were born, and I totally prevented temper tantrums in them. Also, I discovered through this process that all of the parenting books I had previously read had steered me wrong in dealing with temper tantrums. Parenting books that advised about temper tantrums typically described them as inevitable and unpreventable, and usually told parents to ignore them. Besides learning, with child number five, that temper tantrums are totally preventable, I learned that ignoring tantrums ensures they will recur.
I learned to not trust expert parenting advice automatically, without first assessing it, or testing it out. I realized right away after discovering the secret to eliminating temper tantrums with my fifth child, that I had learned something the "experts" hadn't.
I came to see that as people set themselves up to be the "experts" in helping relationships, there is the accompanying connotation that they are the wise, functional, educated, and healthy ones, and their advisees are unwise, dysfunctional, uneducated, and unhealthy ones. This is another reason I don't like the use of the term, "expert." I prefer to use the term, mentor, which can be defined as a wise and trusted person who teaches or advises. This definition implies that this trust is earned and the wisdom is valid. It does not imply that the advisee is unwise.
It's been thirty-three years in the preparation (partly with getting a bachelor's degree in psychology and women's studies) and in the writing of my first parenting book, which shares what I learned about preventing and eliminating temper tantrums. This book has the kind of information I wish I could have read forty-four years ago, at the beginning of my parenting career. But it's only just now been made available.
About the Author:
Learn more about parenting books. Stop by Leanna Rae Scott's site where you can find out all about parenting book options and what they can do for you.
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