Children Who Choose to Be Good
by Kellie Snider; read by Melissa Reizian Frank
www.Drive2Learn.com

It's hard to be against kind parenting. Or to not want kids who choose to be good. Parents who listen to this audio book, Children Who Choose to Be Good, from Drive2Learn, have the opportunity to choose how they want to parent.

Author Kellie Sisson Snider offers a parenting technique that does not contain punishment. Instead, her approach is to help parents decide what behavior they do want from their children and then offer ways to train the kids to have good behavior. The result is that the kids learn that choosing to be good brings good things to them, not as a reward or bribe but because it feels good to be good.

The core of the program is to encourage parents to begin paying attention to all their kids' behaviors and concentrate on looking for the good. She makes a strong point when she says that parents have their own habits of looking for the bad, or being triggered by, it so that they have to learn how to turn their own thoughts into positive ones before they can expect the same from their kids.

The next step is to know what specific behavior parents do want to see in their kids and reinforce that, without talking about the past bad behaviors. That may be easier said than done but it is a worthwhile goal.

Snider believes that punishment never works in the long run. It teaches kids to be sneaky and deceitful, to avoid punishment and when they get older, to be able to physically resist the punishment. She gives a compelling argument and then offers practical methods for changing the behavior such as preventing bad behavior by giving kids other tasks to do.

The best advice from this audio book is for parents to examine their own motivations for their expectations. Past hurts, beliefs and experiences deeply effect how parents choose to raise their children. Kids mirror back what they are taught, both consciously and unconsciously. Snider asks parents to become aware of their own thoughts.

Snider offers a solution based on mutual cooperation, emphasizing the positive in the parents and in the child, and consciously making a choice to choose the good. It may be difficult for some parents to make this shift in their style, but it is worth making the effort. When parents choose to parent from the belief that they and their kids are inherently good, it will make a difference. It seems like a good choice to make.

Copyright © 2003 Anna Stewart. All rights reserved worldwide.