Help! My 9 yr old Quits Every Sport

  Question:  I have a nine year old who wants to quit every sport we try.  In 5 years we have tried 6 sports.  When they get hard or he isn’t great at it, he wants to quit.  He is now trying gymnastics, with the potential to be very good at it.  He is ready [...]

My Child Doesn’t Care About the Consequence

Question: Is it better to have the same consequence for a certain bad choice, or to switch things up?  I always hear “consistency, consistency, consistency”.  For example, if my 5 year old does not help during “tidy time” before bed, he gets no books read to him.  There are some nights where he doesn’t care [...]

Off to School on Time

  Young teens, Maggie and Marcy, were on mom’s last nerve. They couldn’t seem to get themselves going in the morning. Getting them out of bed was like pulling teeth. Since mom drove them to school on her way to work, waiting for them caused her to be late for work several times. Mom finally [...]

When Preschoolers Get Frustrated

Have you ever noticed how frustrated many small children get when they try to do something “big” and it doesn’t work out?   One parent commented to me, “Every time my three-year-old has trouble putting on her socks, reaching the soap in the bathroom, getting her zipper zipped, or anything else, she throws a huge [...]

Sibling Rivalry with Twins

(reprinted from Janada Clark, Clear Path Coaching) Here is a story of a Dad that showed great creativity in the use of the Energy Drain tool. Who would of thought of sending a picture through email of the good time his daughter was MISSING because of her misbehavior? He did and more. Also notice how [...]

Four Tips for Soothing Sibling Rivalry

Why is sibling rivalry such a perplexing issue for so many parents? Simply because we can’t make our kids love each other. That’s completely out of our control.   Listed below are just a few of the many things we can control: 1. Whether we do extra things for kids who are battling with each other.  [...]

Donovan’s Gloves

Dave Funk, one of our favorite Love and Logic experts, has two adopted kids, Donovan and Ski. He writes about Donovan’s experience with responsibility: Like many 12-year-old boys, wearing gloves in even a cold Wisconsin winter was not “cool.” In his attempt to avoid the temptation to do so, he “lost” them-they were nowhere to [...]

Find out what happens when you flush Legos

Here’s how one mom used her Love and Logic skills when her son did an experiment…. My 12 year old son and his friend decided it would be fun to see what would happen if they flushed some Legos down the toilet.  Needless to say, the toilet clogged.  This was a real bummer for him because I [...]

Threats

I last wrote about a mother whose primary parenting technique with her daughter was the use of warnings and threats about pushing her child-sized shopping cart into her sister. Her daughter didn’t respond, but continued her behavior. It’s easy and convenient to threaten in the hopes that it will work. And occasionally it actually does. [...]

When to Discipline

I met a man on the airplane who passed on some great advice. He said that he memorized the following rhyme. It played in his head many times as he raised his family. He said that every time he forgot to apply this wisdom he was disappointed with how he handled a situation. Here it [...]

List of Perfect Consequences

Have you ever thought to yourself, “There is supposed to be a logical consequence for every one of my kid’s misdeeds? The experts must be hiding the list somewhere.” It might make you feel better to know that there is often no logical consequence available. Or, if there is one, its effect won’t show up [...]

Unfair Teachers

Most of us can look back and remember having quite a few teachers who were fair…and some who were not-so-fair. Each one of them taught us something extremely important about life. The fair ones gave us a sense that life is sometimes fair. The unfair ones gave us wonderful opportunities to develop skills for coping [...]

When Kids Constantly Interrupt

Have you ever tried to talk with another adult who constantly interrupted the conversation with completely unrelated, irrelevant details? Just the other day, I tried to visit with a friend. Every three to five seconds, he’d blurt, “Stop that!” or “Hold on” or “Just wait!” or “What did I say about that?” or “Doggone it!” [...]

Anger and Frustration Feed Misbehavior…Reminders Fuel Both

Some kids are like solar panels. Instead of collecting their energy from sunlight, they gather theirs from the heat radiating off of our red faces. When we get frustrated and angry, they think, “Wow! How exciting! Let’s try that one again!” I struggle with this, too! Without thought, I start giving too many little reminders [...]

One Mom’s Energy Drain Sucess Story

Contributed by a mom from my coaching group: I was trying to use the my Becoming a Love and Logic Parent® skills on my son telling him I charge $1/hr for listening to whining and complaining. He had a couple short, ugly comments while we were all watching TV, so I said, “I think that [...]

Oh, What an Energy Drain!

Dr. Charles Fay Have you ever found yourself at a complete loss for an appropriate logical consequence?  Has one of your children ever done something that’s left you speechless? Most parents answer “Yes!” to both of these questions. Fortunately, Love and Logic offers a generic consequence…one that fits just about any thing a child might [...]

Who is the Servant?

Originally published 7/1/09 by the Love and Logic® Institute. Fido goes to the door. We follow his command and let him out. He comes back to the door. We follow his command and let him in. He brings his food bowl. We follow his command and feed him. Before long he learns who issues the [...]