I:0:T I began reading parenting books about forty-four years ago. Wow! I really have been parenting that long. Just recently I "retired" from actively parenting minor children. My youngest of thirteen just turned twenty-one. In the very beginning, I started reading parenting books because I wanted to learn all about becoming the best mother I could be, and also because my first child threw temper tantrums that I wanted to learn how to eliminate. Yet I didn't find any tantrum-elimination techniques taught in any of the parenting books I read. And I didn't find these techniques taught in any of the parenting seminars I went to, either.
With my fifth child, when he was fourteen months old, I learned on my own how to eliminate his temper tantrums. (All of my babies had had been temper tantrum throwers up to that point in my parenting.) After I had learned what I needed to improve in my parenting style with my fifth child, I replicated and improved upon the techniques with my last eight babies as they were born, and totally prevented tantrums with all of them. Through this process of learning how to prevent temper tantrums, I also learned how the parenting books I'd been reading had steered me wrong in dealing with tantrums. They'd all been teaching the inevitability of temper tantrums, that all children have them, and that the best thing to do about tantrums was to ignore them. In addition to learning, with my fifth child, that it is entirely possible to eliminate and prevent temper tantrums, I also learned that ignoring tantrums was part of the cause of them.
From my experience, I also learned not to automatically trust parenting advice from "experts." I learned to assess what they had to say about parenting children before I accepted it. And I recognized that I had discovered what they had not.
I came to realize that when people present themselves as "experts" in helping relationships, they also present the connotation that they are the healthy, wise, functional, and educated ones, while the recipients of their help are the unhealthy, unwise, dysfunctional, and uneducated ones. This is a very good reason to not like the term, "expert," in my opinion. I prefer to view myself as a mentor, meaning a wise, trusted advisor or teacher. This definition has the connotation that the trust is earned and that the wisdom is valid. It does not have the connotation that mentoring recipients are unwise.
It took thirty-three years to prepare for, partially by earning a bachelor's degree in women's studies and psychology, and to write what I learned about temper tantrum prevention and elimination as my first parenting book. This is the kind of parenting book I needed to read more than forty-four years ago. But it's only just now available.
With my fifth child, when he was fourteen months old, I learned on my own how to eliminate his temper tantrums. (All of my babies had had been temper tantrum throwers up to that point in my parenting.) After I had learned what I needed to improve in my parenting style with my fifth child, I replicated and improved upon the techniques with my last eight babies as they were born, and totally prevented tantrums with all of them. Through this process of learning how to prevent temper tantrums, I also learned how the parenting books I'd been reading had steered me wrong in dealing with tantrums. They'd all been teaching the inevitability of temper tantrums, that all children have them, and that the best thing to do about tantrums was to ignore them. In addition to learning, with my fifth child, that it is entirely possible to eliminate and prevent temper tantrums, I also learned that ignoring tantrums was part of the cause of them.
From my experience, I also learned not to automatically trust parenting advice from "experts." I learned to assess what they had to say about parenting children before I accepted it. And I recognized that I had discovered what they had not.
I came to realize that when people present themselves as "experts" in helping relationships, they also present the connotation that they are the healthy, wise, functional, and educated ones, while the recipients of their help are the unhealthy, unwise, dysfunctional, and uneducated ones. This is a very good reason to not like the term, "expert," in my opinion. I prefer to view myself as a mentor, meaning a wise, trusted advisor or teacher. This definition has the connotation that the trust is earned and that the wisdom is valid. It does not have the connotation that mentoring recipients are unwise.
It took thirty-three years to prepare for, partially by earning a bachelor's degree in women's studies and psychology, and to write what I learned about temper tantrum prevention and elimination as my first parenting book. This is the kind of parenting book I needed to read more than forty-four years ago. But it's only just now available.
About the Author:
Learn more about parenting books. Stop by Leanna Rae Scott's site where you can find out all about parenting book options and what they can do for you.
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