Over the years since we started the research that led to this book and through the seminars and research that have followed, we discovered how good ideas and practices can be misconstrued, misrepresented, and taken out of context. So it’s been said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Perhaps on the way down, one might meet teens raised by parents who read books on how to raise little angels. What went wrong?
Love and Logic does not guarantee angelic children and teens, but we do know that the concepts, tools, and techniques of Love and Logic provide the best chance for parental success. But even Love and Logic can be misconstrued or misused. Love and Logic material is filled with beautiful constructs that can be misapplied even by well-meaning parents, especially if their own background is one of dysfunction, abuse, and pain.
One of the interesting things about the Love and Logic method is that if you don’t do it exactly right, it simply won’t work. For instance, we place a great deal of emphasis on modeling. This is one of the great “E’s”
of Love and Logic — example — which, along with experience and empathy, we feel forms the great backbone of effective parenting. And we attempt throughout this book to help parents understand how to set healthy, win-win examples. When parents have poor self-image, it’s hard to set the example that even they themselves want their children to emulate.
Since writing the first edition of this book, we have discovered some common confusions unique to Love and Logic newbies. Specific Love
and Logic attitudes, tools, and techniques can be misapplied or misunderstood. We would like to help you avoid some of these pitfalls by exploring a few of these sad, if understandable, areas of confusion.
Perhaps this is a little self-serving, for we have been shocked over the years, watching or hearing of parents doing the darnedest things, but were doubly shocked to learn they would often defend their actions by saying proudly, “I learned this from Love and Logic.” Here are a few of the more common ones we have encountered in the years since the first printing of this book.
Using insincere empathy.
Love and Logic emphasizes leading with empathy, such as saying:
• “How sad.”
• “What a bummer.”
• “Hope things go better for you.”
• “If anyone can learn from this mistake, it’s you.”
• “I’m sure it’s hard to be you at times.”
• “If anyone can cope with this, it’s you.”
• “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
• “That’s a problem for you, that’s for sure.”
• “With a little deeper figuring, you’ll probably come up with good answers.”
All of these statements — meant to be expressed with kindness, empathy, and understanding — can, unfortunately, also be uttered with the warmth of an icicle on a frosty morning. Unbelievable, but true! This is why. Some parents, understandably, in attempting to learn to show empathy, are on unfamiliar ground. They are used to being angry and frustrated. So, while trying to remember to use new statements — feeling unsure of themselves and perhaps insecure with a new knowledge that doesn’t “feel” familiar — they make statements with the right words but wrong meaning. Their old disappointment leaks through with unhappy, angry, critical, or sarcastic demeanor.
True empathetic statements are not generated from the head but from the heart! Every so often we have heard parents say, “Bummer for you,”
with such callousness that it would freeze a river in summer. For example, Robert failed a test due to not studying. His mom, just learning the Love and Logic principle of not owning or solving another’s problem, says, “Too bad for you that you didn’t put more effort into studying for that test,” and experiences a wisp of cold from her son that cuts her heart like the breeze off ice in winter. Another mom, following the same reasoning, puts her arm around her son’s shoulder and says, “Honey, it’s hard to study when it seems that other things are more important, isn’t it?” and the sun seems to come out from behind the clouds to melt the frost on the windows.
The delivery, and the heart behind it, can make all the difference in the world.
Using consequences as threats rather than a logical outcome of their actions.
Sometimes when a consequence is uttered as a threat, it’s pretty obvious:
“Gavin, if you can’t sit still, I am going to send you to your room!”
Perhaps the threat is still obvious when a parent says, “If you don’t know how to behave properly, I don’t want you around me at all.”
It’s a happier child and parent when the adults impose consequences to take care of themselves. The child is still offered choices: “Ethan, when you act like that it really hurts my eyes and my ears. Where else would you feel comfortable doing that?”
Giving choices that do not give reasonable or acceptable alternatives.
Some choices just aren’t good, honest, and true choices. Spencer was giving Lauren a really hard time in the backseat, when their mom, having had it with Spencer, from behind the steering wheel said, “Spencer, when I pull over, do you want me to allow Lauren to hit you, or do you want me to smack you myself?”
Love and Logic parents give their children choices within acceptable
limits that follow a few key guidelines:
1. The child is expected to willingly pick one of the choices, not given two choices that are both unappealing.
2. The parent can live with whatever choice is picked.
3. If the choice is refused, the parent can lovingly take his or her turn at choosing a response that is enforceable. (Don’t rush into this.
Enforceable responses sometimes take thought: “Hmmm . . . That response drains my energy. I’ll get back to you on this.”)
Using “taking care of yourself” as an excuse for selfishness.
Selfishness; selflessness; self-centered; centered with self. These can be confusing terms with many nuances. And when parents come from difficult backgrounds, the important differences can be lost. For instance, it’s considered good to be selfless, but to have no sense of self is bad. It’s good to be centered in yourself, but to be self-centered is bad.
The reason this issue is important is because Love and Logic stresses the importance of parents taking good care of themselves to set the model for their children. If parents take good care of themselves, then children have a good chance of growing up to be adults who take good care of themselves. When parents always put the children first, they risk putting themselves last and raising entitled, demanding children (better known as spoiled brats).
Love and Logic parents need to put themselves first in a “centered in self” way that is not selfish but insists on a win-win relationship.
Toddlers don’t naturally put their parents first — they’re not supposed to.
So parents must teach children, in the second year of life, “I love you so much. First I win, and then look how well it works out for you! When I’m happy, you are happy too.”
During adolescence, children who haven’t learned the win-win message at two or thereafter often carefully manipulate rebellious win- lose situations with their parents. These generally deteriorate into lose- lose propositions that are upsetting for everyone. Therefore, when living with adolescents, Love and Logic parents insist on respect. They take
good care of themselves, even if it means that their demanding and rebellious offspring may suffer unhappy consequences in the short run.
Using Love and Logic statements as a means of manipulation.
As the old saying goes, “Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” We provide Love and Logic techniques so that you can win the key power struggles you need to with your kids so that they learn to be responsible, not so that you can control every aspect of their lives. In fact, Love and Logic, in truth, is more about gradually giving up control to your kids over the years, not gaining more. Kids need to know you are doing this because you love them and want them to grow into great adults, not because you are constantly on some power or control trip.
Using Love and Logic techniques in lieu of building relationships with your children.
As we started researching Love and Logic, we took it for granted that all parents love their children and want the best for them. We still believe this is true, even though for some parents this is more difficult to express than it is for others. Some who must juggle an incredible number of plates have trouble with this because they just don’t have the time. Still others never had good models for building relationships in the past and aren’t sure where to begin with their own kids, so rather than confront the issue, they flee into hobbies, television, or other forms of avoiding their children.
One of the primary benefits of using Love and Logic is that it eliminates many of the factors that traditionally divide children from their parents — namely, anger, lectures, threats, and warnings. Love and Logic tools are usable, easy, and fun to use. So it is easy to overuse them.
For instance, it is possible to use the “Uh-Oh” song with a toddler who is just being age appropriate. Perhaps not a bundle of joy, but not needing to be excused to his or her room, either. Overuse or misuse of fun-to-use tools is understandable but not excusable.
For example, a commonly used tool is the “I love you too much to
argue” statement. Foster talked with a Montana mother, and she told him about a neat little kid who seemed to be more negative and angry after she frequently used, and turns out overused, “I love you too much to argue.” Foster asked her what her son was most upset about. She responded that he frequently said, “Mom, you just don’t listen to me.”
After exploring the situation, Mom realized that she was using “I love you too much to argue” instead of giving caring responses. She was repeating “I love you too much to argue” instead of simply getting down on one knee and saying, with love, “Honey, I’ll discuss this later. I’m in a hurry right now. Thanks.” More importantly, she realized she really was using the phrase as a way of short-circuiting listening.
Love and Logic cannot change the child before it changes the parent.
One of the reasons we emphasize over and over again that parents need to take care of themselves first is that if the adults are stressed, on edge, angry, or simply not taking care of themselves in a healthy way, Love and Logic will not work for them. Unless parents who have continually dealt with their kids in anger in the past deal with defusing that anger first, they are still likely to fall back into that pattern every time they consequence their kids.
In Love and Logic, parents lead. If we want our kids to have self- control, then we must model it in front of them. If we want our kids to be responsible, then we must model that responsibility in dealing with them.
If we want our kids to treat us and speak to us with respect, in addition to demanding it by our actions, we must treat and speak to them with respect. That is the parenting with Love and Logic two-step — first the parent, then the child.