The New Dare to Discipline Book

This is a tough book to review. The first 4 chapters are about disciplining your child, with a strong emphasis on spanking. My husband & I choose not to spank. Especially after reading the excellent parenting books, The Five Love Languages of Children and Personality Plus for Parents, I believe that spanking isn't a good way to discipline, and there are even some children who would be damaged emotionally by it. I just tried to replace "spanking" with "timeouts" in my head. The next section covered education, which I believe is primarily the parents' responsibility, so I enjoyed that. Even there, he is a little old fashioned and seems to believe that sitting still and memorizing rote facts is beneficial. And parts of that section were dry. But there was a lot of good stuff in there, too. The last section was about morality, and I appreciated that section. At the end of the book, he gives another good dose of spanking advice, and even seems to give the impression that if you are a good Christian parent, you must spank your children. I don't believe it. I just wish he offered more creative and appropriate ways of disciplining young children. He manages to come up with creative ideas for teenagers (he doesn't believe in spanking them). So, if you can get past all the spanking propaganda, you can find some good advice in this book.