How I Learned About Love and Logic™ Parenting

"Would you like to feel more comfortable as a parent?"
"Would you like to have more fun parenting?"
"Would you like to feel more relaxed at the end of the day?"

These three questions were printed in bold at the top of a flyer that one of my children brought home from school. It was a sign-up form for a parenting course called Becoming a Love and Logic™ Parent. After reading that third question, I had checkbook in hand. I have to be there. Sign me up now!

Actually, the class was almost free - we paid only for handouts - and was taught once a week in the school by an excellent team of two guidance counselors and a social worker. Based on the parenting techniques described by Jim Fay, a former school principal; Charles Fay, Ph.D., a child psychologist; and child psychiatrist Foster Cline, M.D., the course taught us techniques and solutions we could use starting right away to help solve parenting's little (and not so little) dramas.

The idea behind the Love and Logic™ theory is this: parents should provide an atmosphere of love, acceptance, and empathy, while allowing the natural consequences of a child's behavior and actions do the teaching. This should happen in the early years, when the consequences of the inevitable less-than-perfect choices are not too severe or damaging. By the time the child reaches adulthood, he or she is equipped with the decision-making skills needed for adult life. The method also teaches insight into parenting styles and how our own parenting styles can, inadvertently, sometimes rob a child of the ability to grow up making good decisions for him- or herself. It's applicable to all children, whether you have toddlers or teens.

Don't worry - Love and Logic™ isn't about letting three year-olds decide if they want to play in the street or the fenced yard and letting them suffer the dire consequences of a poor decision; your child's health and safety are never compromised. Rather, the method focuses on offering children the chance to choose from a range of choices that you, the parent, can live with, in order to experience the teaching value of their decisions.

An example of the theory might be allowing your child to decide how much he or she prepares for a second-grade test. If he says he doesn't need to study and ends up with a poor grade, that's a teaching consequence. When he is upset about the grade, you, the parent, step in as a source of empathy ("gosh, I'm so sorry that happened") without any sarcasm or proclaiming "I told you so". This way, you're not the bad guy, and hopefully your child learns the importance of preparing for tests before he is away at college when there's no mom or dad to goad him into studying. One could argue that the bad grade on one test in second grade is an affordable consequence, while a failed course at college is not. Using Love and Logic™ to help your kids learn decision-making lets them learn from consequences of their actions before the consequences become too big and far-reaching.

Of all the parenting books and advice I have read, I like this approach the best. It makes sense to me. I'd encourage any of you to check out this method if you believe that you're sometimes stressed out by parenting. You don't have to take the course, although the seven-week course was actually very fun and entertaining - never dry or dull. There are also books, tapes, DVDs and videos available to help you learn what this method is all about. You can find out much more than I can ever explain here at the Love and Logic™ Web site.

Let me assure you I am not affiliated with the program, nor did they or anyone else ask me to promote it here. Did it make me a better parent? I can't really judge that, but I have learned to spot some of my own parenting mistakes, and I certainly profited from the course. I hope I'm getting better and better at putting Love and Logic™ parenting into practice.