Motivate Your child Action Plan Book Review
This is the 4th parenting books I've read by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller and it is hands down the best thus far. Once again Turansky and Miller have used a biblical heart based parenting approach to help parents guide their children towards becoming all that they are destined to be. What sets this book apart from the other books I've read is the simple "step-by-step" plan they lay out to help you "identify a specific problem and then define a character based solution."
The book does not disappoint. Short chapters made it easy for me to get through in my very full days of parenting. Within each of those chapters there are stories of the struggles other families have faced in raising their children followed by specific steps parents can take to help children overcome this area of difficulty. The entire progression of the book is very logical and with tips and suggestions that can be used immediately.
If you're like me, once you've decided to make a change, then you're also expecting see fruit of that decision quickly. Motivate Your Child Action Plan suggests that change is possible in as few as 40 days. Though I've been reading Turansky and Miller's books for nearly 8 months and have seen tremendous change and growth in our family, I still paused at this statement. But they were spot on.
If you know our family, and our awesome little guy (4.5 years), you'll likely know he was blessed with an inquisitive mind, a kind heart and more energy than he often knows what do with. But like all of us, he has areas that challenge him as well, such as self control and empathy. And as if he knew I was reading another parenting book, he offered me up lots of opportunities to put these new strategies into practice. Just days after starting this book, H began displaying some very disrespectful behaviors such a back-talking and his hitting behaviors resurfaced. As these behaviors are not appreciated or tolerated by our family, a plan was necessary. Using the principles of this book, here's how we approached it:
Bottom line is, this book will provide you with a practical plan for addressing problem areas in your child's life and guide you in a logical matter towards building the character quality needed to help your child be the best they can be.
The book does not disappoint. Short chapters made it easy for me to get through in my very full days of parenting. Within each of those chapters there are stories of the struggles other families have faced in raising their children followed by specific steps parents can take to help children overcome this area of difficulty. The entire progression of the book is very logical and with tips and suggestions that can be used immediately.
If you're like me, once you've decided to make a change, then you're also expecting see fruit of that decision quickly. Motivate Your Child Action Plan suggests that change is possible in as few as 40 days. Though I've been reading Turansky and Miller's books for nearly 8 months and have seen tremendous change and growth in our family, I still paused at this statement. But they were spot on.
If you know our family, and our awesome little guy (4.5 years), you'll likely know he was blessed with an inquisitive mind, a kind heart and more energy than he often knows what do with. But like all of us, he has areas that challenge him as well, such as self control and empathy. And as if he knew I was reading another parenting book, he offered me up lots of opportunities to put these new strategies into practice. Just days after starting this book, H began displaying some very disrespectful behaviors such a back-talking and his hitting behaviors resurfaced. As these behaviors are not appreciated or tolerated by our family, a plan was necessary. Using the principles of this book, here's how we approached it:
- Observe: This is a challenging area for me because I'm usually quick to jump in and change things. But after reading Chapter 2 "Where do you want to go?" I made a conscious effort to step back and observe the big picture surrounding the undesirable behaviors. This allowed me to identify a target character quality to work on with our son.
- Teaching: Because of our son's age we've done A LOT of modeling kindness. And we talk all the time about what it means to be kind, what it looks like. I have also been using lessons from The Treasure Hunters; a Turansky and Miller curriculum that addresses qualities of the heart. We also share Bible stories where Jesus and other characters demonstrate kindness. We pray for kindness. (Proud Momma Moment: H. has started praying for Jesus to help him be kind too). You get the idea. Just as Chapter 7 "Teaching Shows the Way" suggests, my hubby and I have been very proactive in teaching our children about kindness! It's a topic of discussion all day long whether kindness is being exhibited or not.
- Consistent Firmness: Chapter 5 speaks to being firm, and not harsh with your children. This chapter was well timed with a sermon on patience at church. And they definitely go hand in hand. I have noticed that when I tend to lose my patience my reactions to needed disciplines exhibit more harshness in how I approach a situation. Our son is not yet reading, but responds well to visual cues. After a few trial and errors, this is what has been working for him. We have star drawn on our calendar in our dining area (central area to the house). When he is demonstrating kindness he has his star. When he exhibits behaviors that demonstrate meanness or weakness (also taught) then he loses his star. Loss of his star results in loss of technology privileges as well as "mommy privileges" if he has been mean to Mommy . He can earn the privileges back when he's had a change of heart and begins demonstrating kindness again.
- Be A Coach: As parents, disciplining our children is a necessary part of the job. It is our role to help them learn right from wrong. But we always have a choice in how we approach this. At times in our parenting my husband and I have been dictator like demanding that behaviors change. It has not worked and came at the cost of the close relationship I value with my son. Approaching discipline from a coach's perspective as Chapter 9 "Coaching Sets the Attitude" has made a huge difference. Once we recognized that our son was going to slip in his journey of growing up and the moments of discipline were inevitable it was a whole lot easier to coach him through. With our current plan, during loss of start time, we have a lot of conversations about what he did and what he could do differently next time. We talk about what Jesus would want him to do and about the kind of man he wants to grow to be.
Bottom line is, this book will provide you with a practical plan for addressing problem areas in your child's life and guide you in a logical matter towards building the character quality needed to help your child be the best they can be.