“I’ll admit that with five children, there have been times when I’ve simply parented ‘the herd,’ says Jill in No More Perfect Kids. “I’ve seen them as a group rather than the individuals they are.”I struggle with this too. Sometimes it takes all I’ve got just to plow through laundry, dinner prep, homework help for the older kids, and bedtime routines for…

When I first heard a podcast about No More Perfect Kids, the phrase “perfection infection” caught my attention right away. It is so easy for the comparison game rampant in our culture to slowly infiltrate our homes. Under the guise of seeking excellence and preparing our kids for the “real world,” we often raise the bar of expectations too high.I love this…

A tendency toward perfection invaded my motherhood even before I brought my first born home from the hospital. I was determined to have a “natural” childbirth. No interventions. No meds.Two weeks past my due date, however, our bundle of joy had yet to arrive. I reluctantly allowed my doctor to break my water. “Ok,” I thought, “I can still do this.”Fast forward…

As we give our kids more choices, showing empathy when their unwise decisions result in consequences is what Jim Fay and Foster Cline propose as a recipe for success in “Parenting with Love & Logic”.One of Fay’s most common parenting battles was getting his kids to go to sleep at night, a struggle which many of us can relate to. He spent…

One of the ways “Parenting with Love & Logic” proposes we move our kids from total dependence on us to independence is by giving them choices.Foster Cline, M.D. and Jim Fay open the sixth chapter of their book, “Love & Logic” by stating that giving our kids a certain amount of freedom and control instills them with responsibility and the more control…

“Many kids arrive at their challenging and life-threatening teenage years with no clue as to how to make decisions.”Foster Cline, M.D. and Jim Fay open their book, “Parenting With Love & Logic” pointing to the fact that many self-destructive decisions teenagers and young adults make are because they are the first real decisions they’ve ever made. Growing up, decisions were made for…

Imagine you are at a college football game and a foul is committed. The referee says to the offending player, “This is the last warning I’m going to give you. Next time, you’ll lose yards!” While I’ve watched my fair share of bad calls, if referees didn’t call fouls as they see them, games would quickly devolve into chaos.Dr. John Rosemond uses…

Misbehavior results in negative outcomes. Dr. John Rosemond, the author of The Well-Behaved Child, calls this the ‘Backatcha Principle,’ meaning when you do something bad, something bad will happen to you sooner or later. We recognize this as adults after seeing consequences for some of our poor choices, but our kids’ consciences are not yet fully developed. The author convincingly argues that…

One of the most important components of effective discipline is providing the child proper leadership, which Rosemond covers in the second chapter of the book, ‘The Seven Fundamentals of Effective Discipline.’. Effective leaders say what they mean and mean what they say. They “Let their, ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and their ‘No,’ ‘No’” (Matthew 5:37), as Jesus tells us at the Sermon on…

“Without a doubt, the single biggest source of frustration, stress, anxiety, confusion, resentment, and guilt for today’s parents is their children’s misbehavior.”This is the opening thought from Dr. John Rosemond, author of The Well-Behaved Child. The book provides step-by-step instructions for seven approaches and is a workshop-in-a-book, of sorts, to help deal with a variety of discipline problems.Before he dives into the…