I keep promising you all a list of some of my favourite books on discipline. It's been hard for me to get down to a definitive list because there are bits and pieces that I think are great in so many books out there. So the challenge in making this list is to not overwhelm you with 40 books that you have to sift through reviews for while still being comprehensive in terms of hitting the biggies. But I AM skipping some great ones, and I hope we can think of this list as a starting point and get some feedback from readers about what's been most helpful to them as well.
Another few caveats: (1) I tend to prefer books that describe a general approach, rather than one specific technique. I like to pick and choose different techniques from various sources, but what I most value in a parenting book is a different perspective, a new lens through which I can reframe my challenges. Every time I read or re-read any of the books on this list, I am usually inspired to think differently about discipline challenges IN GENERAL. And I find that it is this fresh perspective that helps me parent more flexibly and tune into my child more consistently. (2) You'll see that the books on my list also don't generally use the term "discipline" in their titles (except for one) and that's because the authors are concerned with giving us the tools for raising happy, kind, empathic, non-aggressive children… and that's not ONLY about displine, but the whole big whack of parent-child relationships. (3) The the books on this list are ones that I continue to return to, rather than read once through, get what I need, and then give them away. So that's the last criteria I used for the final top 10 and that's why some of the more obvious ones did not make it. (4) Finally, I'm generally old-school when it comes to my favourites. I'm oddly skewed towards books that were written a few decades ago. I think they've stood the test of time for a reason (but beware: some of the language in these more dated books are off-putting, what with all the assumptions of mothers being at home all the time, fathers being secondary figures in the house, and general language that's downright sexist in our current thinking).
My Top Ten Books on Discipline (NOT in any particular order…):
1. Playful Parenting: I can't tell you how many times I still pick up this book. It's on my night table and I often find myself rifling through my dog-eared copy to remind myself to Chill-the-f$#@-out! The book reminds us to HAVE FUN with this whole parenting gig. Easier said than done, but I find that the general approach of the book continues to inspire me to come up with new ways to approach old problems. Instead of the power struggles, the book shows us how to make conflicts into games. Instead of focusing on "discipline" and the "rules" of the house, the author shifts our focus to laughing, rough-housing, joking and bonding with our children. It doesn't solve EVERY discipline problem, but for me it gives me the gentle reminder that my toughest conflicts with my kids can often be solved better through flexible strategies that engage my children's compliance through play and imagination rather than through power and force of will.
2. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk: This is another on my bedside table. From the same group that brings you #3 and #7 on the list, this is chock-full of great insights about how to approach conversations with children of all ages so that they're more receptive to your wishes and so that you understand your children better. As the title suggests, the authors provide you with ways to create a context that encourages really effective communication skills — I think their approach helps us reframe communication with not only kids, but with spouses, coworkers, etc. It's compassionate, effective, concrete and can result in some seriously fabulous results, from my experience.
3. Between Parent and Child: Yes, it's dated, but I love, love, love Haim Ginott. Here's a famous quote of his, that I continue to use: “If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.” It's a classic, more suited for older kids (over 3 or so) than younger ones. Here's one of a bajillion review/summaries out there: "Perhaps Haim’s genius was helping parents capture the meaning behind children’s words and deeds. There is nothing quite as soothing
for children as being understood. There is nothing quite as helpful for
solving parenting problems as the feeling of parents and children
working together. Ginott’s approach was unique because he joined great compassion with solid limits" (from the website).
4. Parenting with Love and Logic: I like this book because of its straightforward, practical approach. I like its emphasis on parental modeling of "responsible" behaviour and problem-solving. I also appreciate some of the techniques that are offered up as very concrete ways of teaching children how to make responsible choices on their own (and helping parents deal with commonly occurring conflicts like back-seat battles in the car,
homework, and keeping bedrooms clean). I have some beefs about it too, but I think it's worth the read.
5. The Mother of All Toddler Books: Ann Douglas is awesome for so many reasons, but one of the most straightforward is that she is amazing at pulling together a whole bunch of resources, methods, techniques, and so on into one definitive compendium. This book gives you a bunch of approaches to try out with your child, depending on age, temperament, and you parenting style. It's a really great resource not only for discipline (how to deal with whining, tantrums, and so on) but also deals with other typical toddler challenges like potty training and eating.
6. Raising Your Spirited Child: I've recommended this book before. Here's the review, which says it all… "Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's first
contribution is to redefine the "difficult child" as the "spirited"
child, a child that is, as she says, MORE. Many people are leery about
books that are too quick to "type" kids, but Kurcinka, a parent of a
spirited child herself and a parent educator for 20 years, doesn't fall
into that trap. Instead, she provides tools to understanding your own
temperament as well as your child's. When you understand your
temperamental matches–and your mismatches–you can better understand,
work, live, socialize, and enjoy spirit in your child. By reframing
challenging temperamental qualities in a positive way, and by giving
readers specific tools to work with these qualities, Kurcinka has
provided a book that will help all parents, especially the parents of
spirited children, understand and better parent their children." (From Amazon.com)
7. Siblings Without Rivalry: From the same lineage (Haim Ginott) that brought us "Between Parent and Child," these followers of Dr. Ginott tackle siblings specifically. Lots of you mentioned sibling jealousy issues that may be underpinning the most difficult discipline episodes. This is a great book to re-think how to raise children as team members in a larger family. It provides a thoughtful, compassionate perspective on the sibling relationship in general and then gives practical approaches for addressing episodes of sibling conflict (with lots of examples).
8. The No-Cry Discipline Solution: In the spirit of her other "No-Cry" books, Pantley offers some concrete strategies that pull parents out of power struggles and into a place of confident guides for children's appropriate behaviour. I like the fact that there ARE some concrete methods that you can pick and choose from and that she's very much into taking the child's perspective in these discipline struggles. She encourages parents to remember that they know their child best and to choose the methods that will best suit their child's temperament and needs, as well as their own goals.
9. All the Louise Bates-Ames books: If you're looking for actual techniques or methods, these aren't the books for you. But her series of books (e.g., Your Two Year Old: Terrible or Tender; Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy, etc) is fabulous for giving you a real sense of the developmental challenges and the cognitive and emotional milestones that are being hit at each age. She's also very compassionate and often funny when empathizing with parental challenges at each age.
10. Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense: Because so many of you mentioned that mealtimes were big battle grounds with your children, or that feeding was a real source of anxiety for you as the parent, I wanted to include this one. This is one of the better books I've seen out there on helping parents relax and enjoy mealtimes with their kids. There's good, solid advice about nutrition and stage-specific issues that will come up around feeding. Many parents report feeling a whole lot better after reading this book and implementing strategies to avoid power struggles.
OK, that's my top 10 list… for now. What have I missed? What book have you found indispensable when it comes to discipline or general parenting approaches?
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel overwhelmed by the books out there about various facets of parenting. I love that you have a concise list to start exploring and good reasons why the books are on your list. I can’t wait to start checking them at the library and deciding if I want to add them to my permanent collection. I’m also looking forward to others’ recommendations here in the comments section.
The internet is a great source for vast amounts of information but something about reading a good, old-fashioned book appeals to me sometimes. So thanks!
I found Ann Douglas’s sleep book very scattered and hard to follow, but it sounds discipline might be a better topic to have in the “let me tell you all the different strategies” format. So that’s one to check out – thanks.
I know it’s not quite a discipline book, but I found Brazelton’s Touchpoints-Three to Six really helpful in understanding why my three yearold (now four) does what he does. Once I got that, I could decide how to react (like realizing he’s not *really* lying). The format is a bit tricky, but it’s worth the effort. I am going to read the first one, Birth to Three, to see what I missed the first time around now that the baby is 1.
I’d be interested to hear what your beefs are with the Love and Logic books. When I was pregnant, I was given several copies of these books (and one sleep book, and no other advice books at all…) so I got the impression that L&L was sort of “it” when it came to discipline. And I’ve been very laid back so far about seeking out any other resources.
Your top one and two are also mine. I’ve bought a couple of others, but I found those two to be the best. I may have to look at Raising your spirited child. That looks like it could be a good one too. Thanks for your list!
@Erik: You’re welcome!
@fahmi: I agree with your assessment of the sleep book, it’s a problem of not integrating or synthesizing and simply listing. The discipline book is similar in that vein, but perhaps because I wasn’t so sleep-deprived, I found it a useful resource all around (especially if you don’t want to go out and buy every single book that espouses a “unique” method). I LOVE Brazelton… I think of those books as more general “developmental” books rather than discipline, but it’s hard to draw the line (as with the Ames books) and I absolutely believe we’re better at discipline when we understand what’s actually going on developmentally.
@Nicky: I called them “beefs” because they’re rather petty issues that have probably more to do with my personality than any large fault of the authors. So, for a few examples: I don’t like a whole lot of “lingo” or coining terms as if one’s ideas have never before been thought of. I think the book could be a lot more developmentally sensitive and some of it assumes the same general approach will work the same on a 3 year old and a 10 year old (this is more implicit than explicit). Their big thing is “natural consequences” and letting kids learn how to think through their own problems. Yes, I think natural consequences are a great way to teach, but there are MANY natural consequences you want to PROTECT your children from, including being run over by a car, being burnt, and getting knocked up at 12 years old. Also, I’m very into the child-led learning that they advocate, but I also think there’s a good place for learning from others’ mistakes and learning from a compassionate teacher (i.e., a parent). They seem to assume that if kids aren’t learning from their own experiences and natural consequences, then they’re being hollered at or lectured in some dry didactic way. But I think kids can learn a whole lot from compassionate discussions aimed at the right developmental age at just the right moment (for example, we can teach our kids not to smack others by explaining feelings and pointing out the emotions of others right after they’ve hurt them and discussing how the child would feel if he was hit, etc. The kid doesn’t have to get whacked back just to learn that hitting isn’t a good thing). Oh… and starting each part with a bible passage seems to me a loaded introduction and could potentially alienate parents who are not fond of that particular “good book” or may ascribe to another (or no) religion. (Now I’m REALLY being petty).
Ann is lovely.
And Amazon is about to make a mint off me–thanks for the list! My new year’s resolution this year is to work on being a better mom, and as I like to say, every goal or project begins with a book. Or ten.
I read Positive Discipline and … oh, what’s it called … I can’t remember. Another book in that vein … a year or two back and I had the same beefs witht hem as you describe with the Love and Logic book. i.e. sometimes Natural Consequences are a bad idea–either because the consequence is horrendous, or because there are better ways to learn it, or because the natural consequence falls on the parent instead of the kid (like Frances would love missing thirty minutes of school every morning but if she does and I’m that late for work every day then I lose my job). I’m glad to see I have an expert on my side with that one.
Ooh, I love Playful Parenting, too!
I actually liked Ann Douglas’ sleep book- it gave me the data I needed to figure out my own way through our sleep issues. None of the experts’ ways were working for us.
I’ve being meaning to buy the “Between Parent and Child” and “How to talk…” books for awhile. Maybe I should go do that now.
Thank you for the list, Playful Parenting sounds right up my street, just ordered it.
‘Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child’ By John Gottman is a great book too. He includes steps for emotional coaching which could be applied to anyone and not only kids. Something he said that really made an impression on me was that mums should not question how dads play with there children. In fact the role of the father is to get the child as reved up as possible so the child can learn to self-soothe. I remind myself of this everytime I see hubby playing with my kids and wonder if this type of horse play is really suitable.
My favorite is “Transforming the difficult child.” Yes, the title sucks. Who wants to think they have a “difficult” child. But take it difficult out and put in “spirited” and it is a fantastic book. Really good tips and ideas and talks about positive attention vs. negative attention. Along the same lines of “Raising your spirited child.”
Also, NurtureShock. Not a parenting book but talks about the Science behind children’s behavior and makes you understand why kids do the things they do.
Hey everyone: I hope you realize I’m not saying go out and spend all your last pennies on all these books. One or two will do the trick probably. Whatever seems to click with your general parenting approach…
@paola: I LOVE Gottman. I’ve met him a few times in my other life as an academic. He’s a lovely man. Oddly, I’ve read all his academic papers and not one “lay” book (he has some great ones, apparently, on marriages too). I’m likely to check the one you mentioned out soon (as if I need more reading material. ) Also, the rough-housing thing is big with my husband too and I wonder about its merits CONSTANTLY. And just last week I picked up Playful Parenting again and finally came to the conclusion that I should RELAX and BACK the FREAK OFF. The kids LOVE it, they giggle their little brains off, and only 50% of the interactions actually end with someone in tears;-)
@jodifur: I really like NurtureShock… I’m still only halfway through it (this partial-reading thing is a weakness of mine). And I haven’t read your other suggestion. I’ll check it out…
I have NEVER READ playful parenting and I can’t believe it. I’m going to have to get it. I like Raising Resilient Children by Brooks and Goldstein (I think.) I also like How to Behave so your Children Will Too, by Sal Severe. (I like that more as a recommendation for parents, it’s in lay language and outlines basic concepts in an accessible way.
I don’t think that it’s petty to have a beef with the spiritual/religious overtones in Love and Logic. I like the basic principles in that book very much but I’ve had some Non-Christian patients who had kind of a tough time with that part of it (understandably, I think.) There was the bit about the spanking, too, but I think they may have taken that part out…
Great list!
@The New Girl: Yeah… the bit about spanking. That’s not a beef, it’s larger than that and I continue to edit and re-edit the monstrosity of a “spanking” post that I’m working on. I like your recommendations also! And 1-2-3 Magic is also on my more extended list (just not one I pick up after reading it once).
@Paola- I have the same problem you have with watching my husband get our toddler all revved up. I can usually deal with it, but if its too close to bedtime, I can’t help myself and try to stop it. My excuse is that I’m the one who has to lay next to her in bed, letting her play with my hair until she falls asleep, staring at the wall and trying not to go to sleep. I can stand this for 20-30 minutes, but not the hour it takes if she is too hyped up from horseplay!
Yeah, I know. I need to do something about this bedtime routine. Its on the list to tackle, but we’re doing potty training first.
Another science book I like is “What’s Going on in There?” by Lise Eliot. It has a little bit about discipline, but not much. It is the source I cite to support my “authoritative” parenting style (as opposed to “authoritarian” and I forget what the “anything goes” style was called).
@Cloud: The “anything goes” style is called “permissive.” Can anyone guess how NOT into my work writing I am today? Yup! I’m RIGHT on top of these comments…