The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline

I could not love this book more! Written by best-selling parenting and children’s book author and mother of six, L.R.Knost, ‘The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline’ provides parents with the tools they need to implement the Three C’s of gentle discipline–Connection, Communication, and Cooperation–to create a peaceful home and a healthy parent/child relationship. Presented in bite-sized chapters perfect for busy parents and written in L.R.Knost’s signature conversational style, ‘The Gentle Parent’ is packed with practical suggestions and real-life examples to help parents through the normal ups and downs of gentle discipline on the road to raising a generation of world changers. Table of Contents ~Introduction Chapter 1 The Problem with Punishment offers insight on the punishment versus discipline debate. ~A Gentle Beginning Chapter 2 Foundations: Setting the Stage for Discipline shares how our parenting choices in the first days and weeks and months of our children’s lives affect discipline in later stages. Chapter 3 Castles in the Air: Building on Trust shows how laying a foundation of trust and building on it day by day, night by night, gentle response by gentle response creates the parent/child relationship essential to gentle discipline. Chapter 4 Safe Surroundings shares simple ways to use baby proofing as visual boundaries to begin gentle limit-setting. Chapter 5 Reasonable Expectations offers insight into normal child development and how our expectations affect our parenting. Chapter 6 The Three C’s of Gentle Discipline presents the basic tools of gentle discipline and their components. ~Toddler Time Chapter 7 Sandbox Soapbox: Toddler Insights shares parenting insights from a toddler’s perspective. Chapter 8 Toddlers, Tantrums, and Time-In’s, Oh my! gives specific interventions and preventions for coping with and preventing tantrums. Chapter 9 When Things Get Physical: Hitting, Kicking, Throwing, and Biting offers tools for working through the physical stage with toddlers and preschoolers. Chapter 10 Testing the Boundaries shares insights and parenting techniques for guiding children through testing behaviors. Chapter 11 Parenting in Public provides specific parenting tools for coping with behaviors in public places such as parks, shops, and restaurants. Chapter 12 Crying Wolf: Don’t Be an Old Yeller! gives insight into the consequences of yelling at children. Chapter 13 Toxic Parenting: Spanking, Shaming, Threatening, Manipulating contrasts peaceful, connected parenting with punitive, controlling parenting and their outcomes. Chapter 14 All the ‘Right’ Parenting Moves gives insight into the basic truth that we are imperfect humans raising imperfect humans in an imperfect world and therefore no parenting will produce perfection. ~A Preschooler with a Plan Chapter 15 Hurting Parents, Hurting Children shares ways parents can heal from their emotional baggage instead of passing that baggage along to the next generation. Chapter 16 The Gift of a Strong-Willed Child offers parents with the tools to help children gifted with a rich and vibrant spirit blossom while still providing them with guidance and limits. Chapter 17 You’re Not the Boss of Me redefines defiance to give parents a new perspective and offers insights to help parents work through the more challenging behaviors of childhood. Chapter 18 A Place for Me shares the value of children having a small space of their own to escape from the stresses and sensory overload that can often spark behavioral issues. Chapter 19 When Children Act Out: Reflecting Our Emotions provides insight into the often unexpected outbursts that signal a child’s need for help in coping with family issues. Chapter 20 For Everything There is a Season encourages parents to slow down and recognize the basic truth that children are not small adults and to appreciate the beauty of childhood through the eyes of their children. ~Middle Childhood: Becoming Their Own Person Chapter 21 Thoughtful Cooperation vs. Thoughtless Compliance offers tools for equipping children with inner guidance systems rather than external controls. Chapter 22 The Butterfly Effect shares intentional shifts we can make in our parenting choices to change the trajectory of our children’s future. Chapter 23 The Color of Change provides step-by-step changes parents can make to move from a punitive, control-based parenting style to connected, communication-based parenting. Chapter 24 Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Parenting a ‘Problem’ Child offers insight into the world of the sensitive child and offers parents the tools to guide and support their sensory-gifted children gently and successfully. Chapter 25 Raising Problem Solvers shares strategies to help parents provide their children with effective problem-solving tools to take into the future. ~Gentle Parenting: Teens and Beyond Chapter 26 Children of Violence gives a glimpse into a real-world scenario that children experience every day and offers insight into the root of violence and bullying in our society. Chapter 27 The Discipline of Choice examines the life lessons learned through a teen’s their own choices and the value of unconditional support from a connected parent. Chapter 28 Helping Hurting Teens compares and contrasts the results of punitive, control-based parenting on adolescents and offers parents alternatives to punishments. Chapter 29 Twelve Life Lessons for Daughters and Chapter 30 Twelve Life Lessons for Sons reach out and touch parents’ hearts to reawaken their memories of their own adolescent struggles and esteem issues to help them connect with where their teens are so that they can more empathetically and effectively guide them through the often turbulent adolescent years. Appendix A Five Gentle Tools for Handling Lying shares a practical and gentle approach to lying. Appendix B Backtalk is Communication – LISTEN tackles the startling truth that when children talk back they are actually communicating. Appendix C Twelve Steps to Gentle Parenting: Setting Yourself Up for Success offers a twelve month, step-by-step approach to work toward a more gentle style of parenting.

This was one of the most helpful, clear, concise and practical books on parenting without the use of punishment to control behavior that I've ever read. I have one child who is 15 months old and very active, spirited and intelligent. I desperately needed insight and guidance on shepherding him, not controlling him, and I found it in this book. As a parent and a child and family therapist, I connected immediately with L.R. Knost's evidenced-based suggestions. This is not a book on how to fix your child or manipulate them into behaving differently, but a loving challenge to parent the way we would all want to be parented...with kindness, patience and respect. May God heal L.R. Knost of cancer quickly so she can continue parenting and helping all of us to be better parents. Every parent of children from birth through high-schoolers needs to read this book!

This author, and book in particular, are excellent! She explains so many things that make parenting make sense. I have felt uneasy parenting the way my parents did (verbal smack downs, etc), but didn't fully have the tools to go about it another way. Mrs.Knost explains why those tactics didn't work. She gives wonderful examples of how to go about parenting in a gentle way. The chapters are short enough I can read them and process them as they fit to my life. Her books truly have changed my life.

Love the ideas -- truly written by a loving parent who desires her children to understand good choices from the present options and truly trains the child how to make good choices independently. Repercussions are on par with personal responsibility and provide teachable moments too. I love that her guidance allows for the preferences of each child to be calibrated in to solutions. The child is part of the process and that autonomy allows for the balance between loving guidance and respect for authority. I think this is a wonderful book for parents and anyone who interacts with children.

This is a lovely parenting book. It is not a huge tome that glares at you from the shelf, reminding you of another parenting fail. No, this is a slim, encouraging volume with easy-to-dip-into chapters, and positive ideas to reinforce a parenting style that doesn't rely on shouting, control of conflict. Each section left me inspired to try some of the ideas (which worked! I was gobsmacked - my 4 year old who usually refuses to go to bed practically RAN into the bedroom), and also resolved NOT to do. The chapter on punishment is directed at a USA audience (where hitting kids is still allowed) but the guidelines are still applicable for other forms of punishment. Most useful are the 'stories' which relate real-life scenarios to illustrate the ideas and principles discussed, and the way the author discusses clearly and without ego, when relevant, her own experience. She writes clearly and with humour. My only suggestion for the layout would be perhaps margin summary terms (as the page layout is similar on each page and when reading this late at night I sometimes got lost! But that is a minor point). I bought "2,000 Kisses A Day" and "Parenting Through The Ages And Stages" and these 3 volumes have joined Kaz Cooke's "kid Wrangling" and "Buddhism For Mothers" (and the subsequent "Buddhism For Mothers Of Young Children") as my "Go-To" books for parenting. Highly recommended!

really opens your eyes to a different style of parenting. Grey tips and great motivator. Definitely worth the read.

I'm so thankful for what I have learned in this book and have rediscovered my passion for being a mommy. I'm also happy to say that most of our family struggles have disappeared and our children are thriving little humans.

Selten habe ich einen Erziehungsratgeber gelesen der so brilliant, einfühlsam, logisch und "richtig" war. Ich kann jedes Buch dieser fantastischen Person wärmstens empfehlen. Wie gut unsere Welt wäre, wenn wir alle es schaffen würden unsere Kinder nach diesen Prinzipien zu erziehen! Danke an L.R. Knost für ihre Weisheit!

I am so thrilled to have finally found a book range that actually helps you to respect and love your children as much as they deserve. This book strikes such a chord regarding feeling's of children; family respect and a loving, playful environment in which to support your family. There were many "oh my god, look what I've done to my own kids!" moments, which made me re think my behaviour. I now have a renewed empathy and patience with my gorgeous small people and their behaviour has followed my lead. I cannot thank you enough for redirecting my family away from disconnection, impatience and irritability. I now feel calmer, happier and much more receptive to their needs. I cannot recommend this book range highly enough and wish there were more!

i really like this series of books, the parenting style strikes a cord with me - to me, its aim is to have a strong loving relationship built on a deep connection of trust. its really easy to keep going back to and picking out sections to read when i'm struggling a bit and a reminder of why i want to be calm and try to guide him rather than give into temptation to shout and then end up in conflict. I like the writing style, its not preachy, it just offers guidance and a way of seeing things in a gentler way