PARENTING WITH LOVE AND LOGIC Presented by: Tiffany Doss Based on books by: Foster Cline and Jim Fay

Why Love and Logic? Effective parenting centers around love: love that is not permissive, love that doesn’t tolerate disrespect, but also love that is powerful enough to allow kids to make mistakes and permit them to live with the consequences of those mistakes. Those consequences, when accompanied by empathy - our compassionate understanding of the child’s disappointment, frustration, and pain – hit home with mind-changing power.

Love… One important part of loving our kids is teaching them how to make decisions for themselves. Unfortunately, some kids arrive at their challenging and life-threatening teenage years with no clue how to make decisions.

5 Key Principles of Love and Logic Preserve and enhance the child’s self-concept. Teach children how to own and solve the problems they create. Share the control and decision-making. Combine consequences with high levels of empathy and warmth. Build the adult-child relationship.

The Enhancement of Self-Concept Children, now more than ever, have a low self-concept. What can we do to help?

Preserve & Enhance the Child’s Self-Concept Research proposes that self-efficacy beliefs stem directly from one’s cognitive appraisal of task difficulty, one’s abilities, and whether effort or struggle will yield success. Love and Logic focuses on engineering situations that encourage children to: struggle with solvable problems, receive guidance from adults, achieve success, and attribute their success to their effort. The internal attributions to effort or struggle are KEY to developing high levels of achievement or motivation. Learning from consequences is a struggle that can cause pain, but surviving the struggle is a great self-concept builder.

Teach Children how to Own and Solve the Problems They Create… Children develop problem-solving skills when 2 conditions exist: They are required by the adults around them to think about and solve the problems they create. These adults teach problem-solving skills through modeling and instruction.

Problem-Solving Process 1. Identify and define the problem. 2. Brainstorm solutions. 3. Evaluate each solution. 4. Implement the solution chosen.

Build the Adult-Child Relationship Reductions in use of illegal substances Reductions in parent-child conflict. Reduction in general negative child behavior. Increase in academic performance. Improved personal hygiene. Increased rates of homework completion. Elevated frequency of positive peer and adult interactions. Family Mission Statement Family Meetings Family Nights Eating dinner together One-Sentence Interventions Encouraging your child to have positive relationships with other trusted adults (i.e. sports, religious activities, etc.)

2 Simple Rules of Love & Logic Adults take good care of themselves by setting limits without anger, lectures, threats, or repeated warnings: Adults set limits that can be enforced without power struggles. Adults resist the temptation to “nag.” When a child causes a problem, the adult hands it back in loving ways: The adult holds the child accountable for solving his/her problems in a way that does not make a problem for others. The adult’s empathy is “locked in” before consequences are delivered. Research shows that if we discipline in a way that leaves a child seeing us as mean, the child fails to learn respect, responsibility, and self-discipline.

Problems with Immediate Consequences Most of us have great difficulty thinking of an immediate consequence while we are in the middle of the problem. We “own” the problem rather than handing it back to the child. In other words, we are forced to do more thinking than the child. We are forced to react while we and the child are upset. We don’t have time to anticipate how others will react to our response. We don’t have time to put together a reasonable plan and support team to help us carry it out. We often end up making threats we can’t back up. We generally fail to deliver a strong dose of empathy before providing the consequence. Everyday we live in fear that our kid will do something that we won’t know how to handle with an immediate consequence.

No More Power Struggles! Try This… “I’m going to have to do something about that. We’ll talk later. Try not to worry.” No More Power Struggles!

Perception and Behavior “A significant danger we all face is to interpret another person’s behavior based on our own beliefs.” -Dave Funk

Consequences with Empathy “The difference between consequences and punishment is where we interpret the pain emanating from.” Consequences result in pain coming from the inside; Punishment results in pain coming from the outside.

Styles of Parenting OR... Helicopters Drill Sergeants Hover and rescue. Kids feel incapable and like they are a burden. “You are fragile and can’t make it without me.” Drill Sergeants Make a list of demands. Tell kids how to behave and feel. Tendency to dominate lowers self-worth. “You can’t think for yourself, so I’ll do it for you.” OR...

Consultants Allow kids to: Experience life’s natural consequences, while providing guidance Time to think through a problem Share thinking and control “ You are capable of thinking for yourself, making good decisions, and solving problems!”

Tips for Becoming a Consultant Parent Provide suggestions instead of lecturing or rescuing. Reduce judgmental responses Take good care of yourself in a nurturing way. Let empathy and logical consequences do the teaching. Allow your child to do more thinking than you.

Shared Thinking “Magic” Words and Phrases What would you like to happen? Would you like my thinking on that? How do you suppose that might work? On a scale of 1-10, how good a decision was that? Would you like to hear what others have tried?

Find something unique about each child and share it with him or her. Interventions Eye contact and “No” headshake “I love you too much to argue!” “I” Messages Allow kids to own their feelings. Say “You can be proud of that!”, instead of “I’m so proud of you!” Find something unique about each child and share it with him or her.

Parenting is based on a relationship, not a procedure.

Credits How to Discipline Kids Without Losing Their Love and Respect By: Jim Fay Parenting with Love and Logic By: Foster Cline and Jim Fay Power Point by Tiffany Doss