1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12, 6th Edition
320
1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12, 6th Edition
320eBook
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Overview
"Everywhere you go, you keep overhearing other moms say to their misbehaving children, 'That's one. That's two. That's three.' And then you watch in disbelief as their kid actually stops!"—PopSugar Moms
The most effective parenting guide for tantrums.
Do you want to strengthen your parent-child bond? What about learning how to build self-esteem early on in your toddler, preschooler, or middle schooler? Are you ready to have a calm, happy family and home? This therapist-recommended, evidence-based book is the #1 resource for effective and enjoyable parenting using gentle techniques that work.
Since kids don't come with a manual, 1-2-3 Magic is the next best thing. Using his signature counting method, Dr. Thomas Phelan helps parents to quickly, calmly, and effectively stop obnoxious behaviors like tantrums and meltdowns, whining and pouting, talking back, sibling rivalry, and more by teaching your child how to regulate their emotions in a way that's safe for them and drama-free for you.
You'll also learn how to:
- Build a solid foundation for being a confident parent
- Manage testing and manipulation to avoid derailing your efforts
- Encourage good behavior
- Strengthen your relationship with your child
- Establish positive bedtime, dinnertime, homework, and wake-up routines
Millions of parents from all over the world have used this bestselling child discipline book to raise happier families and put the fun back into parenting—and you can too!
1-2-3 Magic is one of Healthline's Best Parenting Books of 2017, a 2016 Mom's Choice Award Winner, a 2016 National Parenting Product Award Winner and a 2016 Family Choice Award Winner.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781492629894 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Sourcebooks |
| Publication date: | 02/02/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Sales rank: | 71,468 |
| File size: | 36 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Dr. Thomas W. Phelan is an internationally renowned expert, author, and lecturer on child discipline and Attention Deficit Disorder. A registered Ph.D. clinical psychologist, he appears frequently on radio and TV. Dr. Phelan practices and works in the western suburbs of Chicago.
Read an Excerpt
1-2-3 Magic
Effective Discipline for Children 2-12
By Thomas W. Phelan, Dan Farrell, Rex Bohn
Sourcebooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2016 ParentMagic, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4926-2989-4
CHAPTER 1
ORIENTATION TO THE PARENTING PROFESSION
How to Prepare for the World's Most Important Job
THERE'S NO WAY TO know what parenting is like until you do it. Whatever thoughts you may have had about becoming a mom or a dad, bringing that first child home is a jolt — a big jolt. The only guarantee is that raising your child will be more difficult, and more rewarding, than you could ever have expected.
1-2-3 Magic is based on the idea that parenting should be looked at as a profession. In other words, some training will make the job much easier. But that training shouldn't have to take years or involve bringing tons of books home from the library. One book should do it.
Ground Rules for Effective Parenting
The place to start is with your basic parenting philosophy — your overall orientation to the job, which provides the ground rules. Even though the job changes as the kids get older, effective parents have two important qualities. They are:
1. Warm and friendly on the one hand.
2. Demanding and firm on the other.
Being warm and friendly means taking care of kids' emotional and physical needs. It means feeding them, keeping them safe, warm, and well clothed, and making sure they get enough sleep. Warmth and friendliness also mean being sensitive to the children's feelings: sharing their joy over a new friend, comforting them when their ice cream falls on the ground, listening sympathetically when they're angry at their teacher, and enjoying their company.
Being warm and friendly also means liking — not just loving — your children.
The other important parental trait, being demanding and firm, is meant in the good sense. Good parents expect something from their kids. They expect good behavior in school, respect toward adults, hard work on academics, effort in sports, and relationships with friends that include sharing and kindness. They expect their children to follow the rules, to do things for other people, and to sometimes confront issues that are hard or scary.
In other words, effective parents expect their children to rise to life's challenges (as you know, there are plenty!) and to respect the rules and limits that will be required for their behavior.
These two parental orientations, warm-friendly and demanding-firm, might at first seem contradictory. They are not. Some situations call for one, some for the other, and some situations require both. For example, what if your daughter, Megan, slaps her brother, Jon? Time for the demanding side of parenting. But if Megan feeds the dog without being asked? Time for the warm side.
What if it's time for bed? Both friendly and firm sides are necessary. The friendly side might mean snuggling in bed with a child for fifteen minutes of story time before lights-out. The demanding side, on the other hand, might mean requiring the kids to get ready for bed (teeth, bath or shower, pajamas, and so on) before story time can happen. And at nine o'clock, firm means lights-out. No ifs, ands, or buts.
The messages this parenting philosophy sends to children are:
1. Warm-friendly: I love you and I'll take care of you.
2. Demanding-firm: I expect something from you.
Why are both the warm-friendly and demanding-firm attitudes toward your children necessary? For two reasons. The first reason is simple: fun! It would be nice if you could enjoy the children while they are growing up in your household. Kids are energetic, cute, exciting, and fun, and you can have great times with them you'll never forget.
The second reason is a bit sad. You want your children to grow up, leave home someday, and make it on their own. Warm and demanding, therefore, also means encouraging and respecting your kids' growing independence. Friendly and firm means not hovering and not being overprotective. It means giving children a chance to do things more and more on their own as they get older. When our oldest walked five blocks to kindergarten on the first day of school, I was sure he was never coming back. He came back just fine, and I learned a lesson about independence and about his growing competence.
Automatic vs. Deliberate Parenting
You might say there are two kinds of parenting modes: automatic and deliberate. Automatic parenting includes the things you do spontaneously without really thinking (and with no real training), such as picking up and comforting a sobbing two-year-old who has just fallen down. Comforting an upset child is a positive example, but automatic parenting can also include actions that aren't so useful, such as screaming at a seven-year-old who keeps getting out of bed because she says she hears a noise in her closet.
Here's what you'll want to do with the 1-2-3 Magic program:
1. Hang on to your positive automatic parenting habits. You'll find that some of your beneficial parenting moves are already part of the program, such as being a good listener or praising your kids' efforts.
2. Identify your automatic parenting habits that are harmful, useless, or upsetting. As you read through this book, decide how you'll replace these negative actions with deliberate, respectful, and more useful 1-2-3 Magic strategies.
3. Practice, practice, practice! Work hard and thoughtfully until the new methods become automatic. Because 1-2-3 Magic works so well, it tends to be self-reinforcing, which makes the deliberate-to-automatic conversion much easier.
Automatic parenting includes another critically important activity that you do all the time: modeling. Children are great imitators, and they learn a lot by just watching the way you behave. If you are respectful toward others, your kids will tend to be the same. If you scream in fury during fits of road rage, on the other hand ... Well, you get the idea.
The goal, therefore, is effective, automatic parenting. This approach takes some concentration and effort in the beginning, but in the end it's a whole lot less work. And you and your family are a whole lot better off!
CHAPTER SUMMARY
WARM FRIENDLY
DEMANDING FIRM
CHAPTER 2YOUR JOB AS A PARENT
Three Things You Can Do to Raise Happy, Healthy Kids
WE HAVE THREE SEPARATE parenting jobs that require different strategies. Each of these parenting jobs is distinct, manageable, and important. They also are interdependent; each relies to some extent on the others for its success. Ignore any of these tasks at your own risk! Do these three well, and you'll be a pretty good mom or dad. The first two parenting jobs involve discipline and behavior concerns, while the third focuses on the parent-child relationship.
• Parenting Job 1 involves controlling obnoxious behavior. You will never like or get along well with your children if they are constantly irritating you with behavior such as whining, arguing, teasing, badgering, tantrums, yelling, and fighting. In this book you will learn how to use the 1-2-3 counting technique to control obnoxious behavior, and you will be pleasantly surprised at how effective that simple technique is!
• Parenting Job 2 involves encouraging good behavior. Encouraging good behavior — such as picking up toys, going to bed, being courteous, and doing homework — requires more effort by parents (and more effort from kids to engage in the encouraged behavior) than controlling difficult behavior does. In this book, you will learn seven simple methods for encouraging positive actions in your kids.
• Parenting Job 3 is strengthening your relationship with your children. Some parents merely need to be reminded of Parenting Job 3; other parents have to work hard at remembering to do it. Paying attention to the quality of your relationship with your children will help you with Jobs 1 and 2, and vice versa.
How do our three parenting jobs relate to the warm and demanding parenting traits? As you may have guessed already, the tactic for Job 1, controlling obnoxious behavior, depends almost entirely on the demanding parent role. There's not much warm or fuzzy about it! Job 3, however, will rely almost entirely on the warm side of the parenting equation. And finally, Job 2, encouraging good behavior, will employ both warm and demanding strategies.
Stop vs. Start Behavior
When it comes to discipline, children present two basic problems to adults, and these two problems define the first two parenting tasks. When we are frustrated with our children, the kids are either (1) doing something negative we want them to Stop (like whining), or (2) not doing something positive we would like them to Start (like getting dressed). In 1-2-3 Magic, we call these two kinds of things "Stop" behavior and "Start" behavior. In the hustle and bustle of everyday existence, you may not have worried much about the difference between Start and Stop behaviors, but — as we'll soon see — the distinction is extremely important.
Parenting Job 1: Controlling Obnoxious Behavior
Parenting Job 1, and the first step in getting your family back on track, is controlling your children's obnoxious behavior, or Stop behavior. Stop behavior includes frequent, minor, everyday issues, such as whining, disrespect, tantrums, arguing, teasing, fighting, pouting, yelling, and so on. Stop behavior — in and of itself — ranges from mildly irritating to pretty obnoxious. Each of these difficult behaviors may not be so bad on its own, but add them all up in one afternoon and by 5:00 p.m. you may feel like hitchhiking to South America.
For Stop behavior, such as whining, arguing, screaming, and teasing, use the 1-2-3, or "counting" procedure. Counting is simple, gentle, and direct.
Parenting Job 2: Encouraging Positive Behavior
The second parenting job is to encourage your children's positive behavior, or Start behavior. Start behavior includes positive activities like cleaning rooms, doing homework, practicing the piano, getting up and out in the morning, going to bed, eating supper, and being nice to other people. You have a Start behavior problem when your child is not doing something that would be a good thing to do.
For Start behavior problems, you will have a choice of seven tactics, which can be used either one at a time or in combination. These tactics are praise, simple requests, kitchen timers, the docking system, natural consequences, charting, and the counting variation. Start behavior strategies, as you can probably guess, require a little more thought and effort than counting does.
Choosing Your Strategy
Why the difference in strategies between Parenting Jobs 1 and 2? The answer lies in the issue of motivation. If she is motivated, how long does it take a child to terminate an irritating Stop behavior like whining, arguing, or teasing? The answer is about one second. It's really not a big project. Depending on how angry or oppositional a child is, ending an occurrence of obnoxious behavior doesn't take tons of effort.
But now look at Start behavior. How long does it take a child to accomplish something constructive, like eating dinner? Maybe twenty to twenty-five minutes. To pick up after himself? Perhaps fifteen minutes. To get ready for bed? Twenty to thirty minutes. Ready for school? Thirty minutes. Homework? Schoolwork might take anywhere from forty minutes to three years. So it's obvious that with Start behavior, more motivation is required from the child. He has to begin the project, keep at it, and then finish. And the project is often something the child is not thrilled about having to do in the first place.
In addition, if encouraging positive behavior in kids requires more motivation from the kids, it's also going to require more motivation from Mom and Dad. As you'll soon see, putting an end to Stop behavior by counting is relatively easy if you do it right. Start behavior requires more sophisticated tactics.
In managing a behavioral difficulty with one of your children, you will need to first determine if you have a Stop or a Start behavior problem. "Is the issue something I want the child to quit? Or is it something I want him or her to get going on?" Since counting is so easy, parents sometimes make the mistake of using counting for Start behavior (for example, counting a child to get her to do her homework).
As you will soon see, counting produces motivation that usually lasts only a short time (from a few seconds to a couple of minutes) in children and does not provide the lasting motivation needed to get a child to continue desired behavior. If you mix up your tactics (such as using the counting technique for homework), you will not get optimum results.
But don't worry. This whole procedure is so simple that you'll be an expert in no time. Effective discipline will start to come naturally and — believe it or not — your kids will start listening to you.
Parenting Job 3: Strengthening Your Relationships
Your final parenting job is to work on strengthening your relationship with your kids. This means making sure that screen time does not replace face-to-face time. More importantly, strengthening relationships means that you value enjoying one another's company. It is critical to your family's well-being and to your kids' self-esteem that you like (not just love) your children.
What does "liking" your children mean? Here's an example. It's a Saturday and you're home by yourself for a few hours — a rare occurrence! Everyone has gone out. You're listening to some music and just puttering around. You hear a noise outside and look out to see a car pulling up in the driveway. One of your kids gets out and heads for the front door.
How do you feel in your gut right at that moment? If it's "Oh no, the fun's over!" that may not be like. If it's "Oh good, I've got some company!" that's more like like.
Liking your children and having a good relationship with them is important for lots of reasons. The most important reason may be that it's simply more fun. Kids are naturally cute and enjoyable a lot of the time, and you want to take advantage of that valuable quality. And they only grow up with you once.
Next up? In chapter 3 we'll examine the strange and amazingly disruptive idea that adults carry around in their brains about small children.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the importance and magnitude of the job of parenting? From now on, just focus on managing difficult behavior, promoting positive behavior, and strengthening relationships. That focus will make the task feel much more manageable. The rest of the time? Just be yourself!
CHAPTER 3CHALLENGING THE LITTLE ADULT ASSUMPTION
Why You Need to Remember That Kids Are Just Kids
THERE IS AN ENCHANTING but troublesome idea that parents and teachers carry around in their heads about young children. This naive assumption — or wish — causes not only discipline failures, but also stormy scenes that can include physical child abuse. The idea we're talking about is known as the "Little Adult Assumption."
The Little Adult Assumption is the belief that kids are basically reasonable and unselfish. In other words, they're just smaller versions of grown-ups. And because they are little adults, the reasoning goes, whenever children misbehave, the problem must be that they don't have enough information in their heads to be able to do the right thing. The solution? Simply give them the facts.
Imagine, for example, that at exactly 4:12 p.m. your eight-year-old son is teasing his five-year-old sister for the eighteenth time since they got home from school. What should you do? If your boy is a little adult, you simply sit him down, calmly look him in the eye, and explain to him the three golden reasons why he shouldn't tease his sister. First of all, teasing hurts her. Second, it makes you mad at him. Third — and most important — how would he feel if someone treated him like that?
Now imagine further that after this explanation your son looks at you — his face brightening with insight — and he says, "Gee, I never looked at it like that before!" Then he stops bothering his sibling for the rest of his life. That would certainly be nice, but any veteran parent or teacher knows that doesn't happen. Kids are not little adults.
The crucial point here is this: grown-ups who want to believe the Little Adult Assumption are going to rely heavily on words and reasons in dealing with young kids. And by themselves, words and reasons are going to be miserable failures much of the time. Sometimes explanations will have absolutely no impact at all. At other times adult attempts at enlightenment will take parent and child through what we call the "Talk-Persuade-Argue-Yell-Hit Syndrome."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas W. Phelan, Dan Farrell, Rex Bohn. Copyright © 2016 ParentMagic, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: Parenting: Long Hours, No Pay, Excellent Benefits
Part I: Building a Solid Foundation for Parenting
Chapter 1: Orientation to the Parenting Profession
Chapter 2: Your Job as a Parent
Chapter 3: Challenging the Little Adult Assumption
Chapter 4: Avoiding the Two Biggest Discipline Mistakes
Part II: Controlling Obnoxious Behavior: Parenting Job 1
Chapter 5: Getting Results through Counting
Chapter 6: Advice for Nearly Any Counting Challenge
Chapter 7: Disciplining Your Child in Public
Real-Life Story 1: The Case of the Temper Tantrum Terrorist
Chapter 8: How to Handle Sibling Rivalry, Tantrums, Pouting, and Lying
Real-Life Story 2: The Incredible Case of the Traveling Troublemakers
Chapter 9: Getting Started with Counting
Part III: Managing Testing and Manipulation
Chapter 10: Recognizing the Six Types of Testing and Manipulation
Chapter 11: Tales from the Trenches
Part IV: Encouraging Good Behavior: Parenting Job 2
Chapter 12: Establishing Positive Routines
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