I started reading parenting books forty-four years ago. That's how long I've been parenting. But just lately I "retired" from my position of actively parenting minor children. My youngest (of thirteen) just turned twenty-one. In the beginning, I was reading parenting books to learn how to become the best mother I could be, and to learn how to eliminate the temper tantrums of my first child. I didn't find any tantrum-elimination solutions in any of the parenting books I read, however-or in any of the parenting seminars I attended either.
I figured out by myself what techniques worked to eliminate temper tantrums when my fifth baby was fourteen months old. (All of my children had thrown tantrums up to that point in time.) Once I had discovered what needed to be changed in my parenting techniques with my fifth baby, I applied the same and additional techniques with my last eight children from the time they were born, and I totally prevented temper tantrums in them. Also, I discovered through this process that all of the parenting books I had previously read had steered me wrong in dealing with temper tantrums. Parenting books that advised about temper tantrums typically described them as inevitable and unpreventable, and usually told parents to ignore them. Besides learning, with child number five, that temper tantrums are totally preventable, I learned that ignoring tantrums ensures they will recur.
I learned to not trust expert parenting advice automatically, without first assessing it, or testing it out. I realized right away after discovering the secret to eliminating temper tantrums with my fifth child, that I had learned something the "experts" hadn't.
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's taken me thirty-three years to prepare for (partially by getting a bachelor's degree in psychology and women's studies) and to write about my temper tantrum prevention and elimination techniques in my first parenting book. This is the parenting book I wish I could have read forty-four years ago, starting out as a parent. But it's only now been written.
I figured out by myself what techniques worked to eliminate temper tantrums when my fifth baby was fourteen months old. (All of my children had thrown tantrums up to that point in time.) Once I had discovered what needed to be changed in my parenting techniques with my fifth baby, I applied the same and additional techniques with my last eight children from the time they were born, and I totally prevented temper tantrums in them. Also, I discovered through this process that all of the parenting books I had previously read had steered me wrong in dealing with temper tantrums. Parenting books that advised about temper tantrums typically described them as inevitable and unpreventable, and usually told parents to ignore them. Besides learning, with child number five, that temper tantrums are totally preventable, I learned that ignoring tantrums ensures they will recur.
I learned to not trust expert parenting advice automatically, without first assessing it, or testing it out. I realized right away after discovering the secret to eliminating temper tantrums with my fifth child, that I had learned something the "experts" hadn't.
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's taken me thirty-three years to prepare for (partially by getting a bachelor's degree in psychology and women's studies) and to write about my temper tantrum prevention and elimination techniques in my first parenting book. This is the parenting book I wish I could have read forty-four years ago, starting out as a parent. But it's only now been written.
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