Everyone is fond of espousing his or her preferred parenting techniques. I notice people are especially fond of sharing these techniques when your children, or rather you, aren’t behaving how these people think you ought. Even more so if they are utter strangers, and still more likely if you did not ask at all.
Say, for example, you have four children with you at the store, three of whom are practicing for their audition for the Broadway show The Whining Sisters. And say, for example, you state, in utter exasperation, “I will get all of you the light up ring pops if you sit in the cart quietly while we finish shopping!”
In this case, a stranger might pipe up and say, “Bribery doesn’t teach them to be good for goodness’ sake! The well-known Dutch author and parenting expert Dr. Hasnochildrenofhisown says if you model behavior and blah blah blah and still more blah that has no actual meaning in a real life situations!”
After you finish modeling “if looks could kill,” you model “restraint” and say simply, “I’ll make sure we look up that book next time we go terrorize the library with our presence.”
Then you model “creative cursing” and “incomplete sentences” by muttering, “Stinking...succotash...with flapping...hinges and dog dog dog dog dog dog dog.”
Now, I started out this parenting gig with excellent intentions. I was going to do it all right, you see. I was not going to make those mistakes, of course. My children and I would work as well together as peanut butter and jelly. They’d be models of “why you should stop birth control” and I’d never even raise my voice. I read reviews, did some research, and selected the One True Expert who Had All the Answers and who would Guide Me Toward True Parental Gnosis.
I began my quest for Parental Gnosis by trying to follow The Book. The Book, in my case, was Dr. Sears. I wanted to parent in a loving way that had structure, but never made my kid feel bad.
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