Making Children Mind without Losing Yours caught my attention with the title of the book. I had picked up several parenting books and read all around the same time to help me with my spirited second child who happened to be a boy. It offers some great practical advice but it is geared towards those of the Christian Faith. Don’t get me wrong, I was raised on Christian ideology and my mother whole heartedly followed the “spear the rod spoil the child” and required obedience as she was the parent. So because I grew up in the household I did, much of this book wasn’t anything new for me. I do not agree with all of his principles, I do believe that there are other methods of disciplining children besides spanking them. With that said, if Christian ideology is not your cup of tea then you might want to pass on this book and pick up another.

I was given this book as a gift from my mother (should I be offended?!) and I think it has some great advice in it. As a parent of three children, I have been guilty of falling into the trap where I felt I always had to protect my children from failure. This book helped me put into practice what I already knew- sometimes children have to fail in order to be successful by their own hands. In other words, if your child does not want to do a project, they are going to learn more by failing the project than they would have by your cajoling, bribing, and subsequently doing the project for them. I think this is a hard lesson for parents to learn, yet an important one that can have major ramifications on your children's future. This book has great, practical advice and guidance for parents on the subject of discipline. It was definitely a "reality check" for our family!

I rented this book from the library and am glad I did that instead of paying for it. To be fair, this book was a nice, light-hearted read with good advice, I'm just not a fan of the way it was presented. Dr. Kevin Leman, the author, bases his theory of child rearing on religion. His particular technique, "reality discipline" is based on a passage from the bible. In fact, most of the book is laden with Christian ideology.

Most of what Dr. Leman says is simple, matter of fact, common sense ideas about parenting. At the end of each chapter, there is also a review section and a place that gives tips of what strategies to put into practice. It's also nice that each section has tips on how to put his concepts into practice. However, it's still all based on his own religious preferences.

Overall, the book was interesting, but not something I would suggest for a non-Christian.

I enjoyed the practical aspect of this book. These days, I hear a lot of parents trying to reason with their very young children. Toddlers need guidelines and it's great to explain some of the reasons we have the rules we do. However if they do not agree, it does not mean the rules are wrong. I liked the way Dr Leman kept things simple - it's almost like cause and effect. If you do this, the consequence will be ________________. But you have to be able to stick to that. I see parents often trying to inappropriately soften consequences for their young children. This book shows you how allowing your child face the consequences will teach them about life and about right and wrong. I have to say that the temper-tantrum section did not work as well for my son as I had hoped, but that is most likely because I was dealing with a "spirited child" -- everything else was right for our family.

I loved this book. It has some great down to earth solutions for everyday problems with children. I really enjoy books by this author anyway. Dr. Leman writes in such a way that you feel like he is sitting right there with you.

He says that you should allow reality to teach your children. If your child is late for school, reality is that he or she will have to stay after school or get bad grades. If you want your child to stop running into the road, find a dead animal and explain to them that this is what happens when you are hit by a car. Children are smart creatures and it is amazing how young they can grasp that concept. We have a copy of this book always readily available.

He covers just about every situation you can imagine from sibling rivalry, to picky eaters. In our family we now have a motto for our children. "That's reality honey."