Parenting What's It All About Book

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. I feel like it motivated me to play with my children more. It also made me rethink the value of play and what certain types of play mean. Due to this book, I played a game where my young son took away my shoes and I cried and cried about how I wanted them back. My son loved the game and due to reading this book, I could see where this would be fun for him when in real life, I'm the one taking things away from him. So there were nuggets that were gleaned from this reading experience.

That being said, this book was long and super repetitive. I was aggravated by the poor organization that allowed such repetitiveness. It wasn't very "user" friendly either. I waited a long time for answers to simple questions. For example, I wanted to know how often I should play with my children. It took the author forever to get around to answering this question and it was never answered to my satisfaction. The author spent a lot of reading time relating stories and metaphors without clearly stating what playful parenting is and how it's done.

The second thing that bothered me the most, was the author himself. His writing came off as condescending and judgmental towards us poor parents who just don't know what to do. Some of his real life stories bugged me as well. For instance, he relates one story of a mother who he considered was being overprotective of her child and therefore, inhibiting her child. Rather than create an awkward situation by pointing this out to her, he made a game of it. The game was to exaggerate her behaviors to help her see how ridiculous she was being. He seemed very proud that he corrected her without embarrassing her. I, personally, found his approach more rude and humiliating than if he would have just told her she was being overprotective. Although both are bad things to do in my opinion. What gave him the right to judge her and her parenting? If she was asking for his help, that's one thing, but she wasn't. It wasn't his place to correct her.

There was another section where the author talks about parents helping and supporting one another. He suggests instead of ignoring a fellow parent and child where the child is throwing a tantrum, to walk up the the parent and say, "Wow. Looks like you've had a long day." Um, that's supposed to be helpful and supportive? I'm sure in the middle of my child's tantrum, I would love for a stranger to come up to me and guess how my day was going based on the ten seconds they've observed me. So helpful. Of course, he also gave the suggestion to stand by, offering a supportive smile. Who doesn't want an audience to their child's tantrum? The only suggestion I found helpful was when he recommended assisting the parent of a child throwing a tantrum by taking out their groceries.

Another thing I didn't like was that the author seemed to expect the reader to believe broad, sweeping statements without providing the research to back them up. This book was very anecdotal. For instance, the author would have been a lot more credible in his disdain for the "cry it out" method if he would have backed that up with evidence, rather than a general statement from his experience counseling adults who were left to cry it out as babies.

There were many other things that bothered me. As with any other parenting book, the author claimed that his ideas would solve ALL problems and would fit any parent/child mold. By the end of the book, I wasn't convinced.

It also annoyed me that children were never to blame for their problems and it seemed like the parents were held completely responsible for their child's behavior. Your child is acting out, why it's because you're not connected with her! If you played with your child more, she wouldn't be acting like this! The political correctness of it all drove me a little crazy. Instead of calling a temper tantrum a "fit" (therefore blaming the child), let's call it a "fight" and make it "our" problem.

There was constant, “Even though a child is acting like this, it really means this.” Of course his assessments would be right some of the time. However, he never seemed to consider other factors. Like maybe a child is hungry or tired or maybe their behavior doesn’t have a logical reason at all! To me, human behavior and motivations are too complex to be dumbed down as much as the author dumbed down kids' behavior. Sometimes there is just one reason for people’s actions, but more often than not, there are several.

I didn't necessarily hate this book (despite the multiple times I wanted to chuck it across the room and couldn't--dang e-books). It was just a matter of finding the few gems amongst all that other stuff. This would probably be much higher rated if I had skimmed it and checked it out from the library. I know it will forever change how I view play, and for that, I am grateful.

2 Stars.