Book Review: the best parenting book ever

I went into parenting, as I imagine so many of us do, with a lot of ideas about the parent I was not going to be, but not a really clear idea of the parent I was going to be. This emerged in stark relief when babyhood ended and boots were on the ground. In fact, I often felt resentful when my kids were unpleasant, because it felt so unfair. I wasn't my mother, why were my kids acting like I was?

You can learn many different ways, but when your experience is poor, it's natural (for me, anyway) to turn to books. And of course, there's a colossal universe of parenting books out there. I've read hundreds, but I didn't learn hundreds of things about parenting better. I learned a couple of things, but mostly these books, and the blog and magazine constellation that orbits them, were useless.

One book I saw recommended everywhere was How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & How To Listen So Kids Will Talk. I think I'm the only person who can't stand this book. Remember Highlights for Children, the magazine you only saw at the pediatrician's office? Remember Goofus and Gallant? They were a cartoon set of nightmare twins where one was always perfect and the other was demon spawn. Frankly, the boys should've been taken away to foster care the minute their names were registered, but Goofus always does something bad, and Gallant always does it good instead, making them kind of a watch-them-grow Bulger brothers setup. HTTSKWL&HTLSKWT is kind of like that, a series of cartoons where first your kids are awful, whiny and screaming with rage, and you hate them so you talk to them like the jerk you are; but in the second panel you talk like a therapist, discoursing with the smallest toddlers on their feelings, and suddenly the child is dry-eyed, docile and cooperative. It's like magic!

Except that it's not. In all my years as a babysitter, aunt, nanny and mother, I have never had a successful experience with this technique. Me: "I hear you calling your brother a poopy pants. How do you think that makes him feel?" Liam: "It makes him feel like a poopy pants. Because he is." No earthling child ever responded with a massive personality change like the cartoons. It's overtalky at the wrong time, and patronizing with a whiff of suppressed manipulation. So maybe it's not as bad as saying "shaddup" to a kid who's annoying you. Or maybe it is just as bad--it's like the game asking people whether they'd rather freeze to death or burn to death. How about neither?

After long, considered, critical reading, I tossed out everything but two books. One (and this is a full and somewhat embarrassing disclosure) helped me personally at a particular time, although about 70% of it was drippy new agey shlock: Whole Child Whole Parent, had a nice message that could've fit well in a small brochure about the radical concept that you don't need to constantly improve your kid or yourself, you just need to find ways to get along.

But the other, which was vastly more important, and I consider it the bible of parenting books, is Miss Manners Guide to Rearing Perfect Children, even though it's in need of an update. It's worth the price just for the solution to the game of asking "why" over and over and over. Answer, "I do not care to discuss it" over and over, and it will stop. It will stop without any loss of authority or politeness or temper. I've used it on difficult adults successfully.

Is MMGTRPC written in a hilarious tongue-in-cheek style that might be an accustomed taste? Yes. Does it involve manipulation of your children? In spades, but overtly, in such a way that as they grow, you can actually take it right out of the closet and own it: a thank you note for a disliked gift is a way to both be grateful for the thought, and to encourage more attempts by the giver. When the girls were old enough to call me out on being manipulative, I was able to wholeheartedly agree with them. Miss Manners is all about diplomacy--learning it, using it, teaching it, regardless of the age or gender of the diplomat or the diplomee.

More importantly, the book gives reality-based, practical social and temperament advice equally to parents and children. A boy whose bright red hair is often remarked upon by adults finds a polite but final answer to give. Critically, and I have been part of seeing this work, some kinds of mean-girl bullying is nipped in the bud, before it becomes devastating to the girl and satisfying to the queen bee. A mother tired of hearing remarks about her handicapped child is given an arsenal of social tools so that she is polite and still a champion for her child; assertive but not a shrew; mannerly but not a doormat. A father finds a courteous but firm answer to "Did you use a sperm donor?"

So that's my recommendation. Most kids, after babyhood, are very attuned to social situations. Everybody wants to get through the day, the month, the year; everybody wants the kids to be able to function well when they're all grown up; and everybody wants to save face. I remember feeling so liberated reading this book: I don't need to repeat this child's grievance. I don't need for her to articulate why she's having a tantrum, I pretty much already know. I just need to tell her it's time to stop or leave.

Parenting hack: Ok is not ok, ok?

The first time I got together with local homeschoolers was when Prima, was five, Penny was three and Treya was nearly one.* A domineering eleven-year old-boy (and sociopath-in-training) had convinced a number of other boys to sneak up on the toddlers and threaten them with sharp sticks, essentially staging a tot hunt. When alerted to the fact, the boy's mother called out an open door, "Honey, that's not ok, ok?" and turned away. This was supremely ineffective: it made him laugh and stab all the more. 

The problem with "ok" is that it is so all-encompassing as to be meaningless: it means agreement, assent or acceptance; and it means satisfactory, and it means functioning properly. In conversation, though, people constantly use it to mean "understand" or "do you hear me."

My favorite use of the term is when parents, terrified of being in charge, seem to have a compulsion to soften everything they say: "Addison, put those cookies back right now, ok?" "I said, 'Put them back, ok?'" "Now I'll have to give you a time-out, ok?" This is starting from a crazy premise; that Addison is agreeable to putting back the delicious cookies, the cookies that she is not interesting in putting away. Then follows a request that she will find a punishment satisfactory. In other words, this wording assumes that Addison is either stupid or crazy. It diminishes the good parenting you were trying to do. What you meant, and therefore, what you should have said, is, "Addison, put the cookies back. Do you understand?" It doesn't take much longer, it really doesn't.

Would you constantly ask your co-workers and subordinates if every request, especially disciplinary ones, was ok with them? And I know, kids aren't co-workers, although please remember, they are your subordinates. But establishing civility and clarity is an effective way earn respect. Not all the time, of course. Kids are unpleasant a lot of the time, sorry, but it's true. It's how human development works—everyone was once unpleasant.

There are pointless parents everywhere, but if you're not one of them, consider ditching the entire concept of ok, ok? Ok? Choke it back when you're tempted. But you know what? Just remember that it's not nice to ask kids to consent to something if you are not willing to accept the answer "no."

*birth order pseudonyms: Prima=daughter the first; Penny (short for penultimate)=daughter the second; Treya=daughter the third

Parenting hack: don't not never use a negative

My mother once washed my mouth out with soap. We had a little clothesline in the basement closet and clothespins with kitty faces on them for drying mittens. Five-year-oldish, I was singing to the kittens, and naming them alphabetically: Ay-itten, Bitten, Citten, Ditten, Ey-itten, Fitten, Gitten, and had apparently gotten to "sh." She said, "don't say that!" hauled me out of the closet by my ear and fed me a horrible, frothing, somewhat squishy bar of Ivory. For years and years I had no idea what her problem was with cats, but wow, she really hated all twenty-six of them.

Kids and parents are set up for communication channel failures all the time. Baby toddles over to the plug. Parent says, "Don't touch that!" Baby looks at parent. Baby yanks on plug. Baby's first time-out.

It's also baby's first Kafka: a punishment that comes down from above without the baby having the faintest idea what just happened. And there will be many, many, more of these on the way to being a fairly responsible member of society.

Tots don't get the word "don't." When you say "don't touch that!" you're setting the kid up for failure. First, obviously, the baby wants to touch the electrical cord. So you have to overcome the momentum of attention. Second, language is new to someone new. "Don't" is a short word with hardly any meaning in a world full of novelty and noise. In fact, it really only functions as a verbal "hey!"to a baby. So now he's looking at you, and taking in the words "touch that" which is what he wanted to do in the first place. You just told him to do it. So now he does, and he was sure you were on board with the plan, except that to you he looks defiant, and to him, your reaction looks insane. Then on top of it, he gets punished, and is mighty sad and angry about that.

Want to make things easier on both of you? Start talking clearly from the beginning. Say "Hands off!" for example, because even if she doesn't really get anything more from "hands," there's a word with clear meaning after that, "off." The child doesn't have to cognitively work backwards. Repeat it, and you're still giving clear directions instead of asking someone whose age is still counted in months to parse English grammar to find your point. Hold on tight, instead of don't let go. Keep your shoes on, instead of don't take your shoes off. Once you know about the null first word, it becomes really clear why the kid has such a hard time.

By the way, it works with you, too. That's why Nike says, "Just do it," instead of "Don't sit on your behind."