laugh and comment. Yet I never knew if the Love and Logic
principles were sinking in with him until one day, in the car,
when we were driving together and the kids were raising low-
grade heck and high water in the backseat, he said, just as you
have said on a tape, “Guys, it’s going to be a lot quieter in this
car the last mile home because your mom and I will be the only
ones in here!”
There was a moment of deafening silence, and then our ten-
year-old son, in a slightly challenging and snarky voice, said,
“You wouldn’t do that!”
Quick as a wink, my hubby said, “That’s what Tommy said.”
Again a moment of silence. Then one of the kids asked,
“Who’s Tommy?”
My husband replied, “Your older brother!”
A mile from home, the kids got out and hiked home, and, of
course, we never had to use that method again. But the cute and
wonderful thing is now that the kids are grown and travel with
their families on trips, they write us and sign it, “Poor lost
Tommy.” It’s the family joke. Wandering Tom is still out there
somewhere, wandering the highways and byways of the world
after being kicked out of the car and becoming lost on the way
home.
I think the lessons in this woman’s story are clear. When the
going gets tough, the tough start laughing — laughing, joking,
and loving kids while imposing the consequences sets the
model for their own development of great coping skills.It’s the Empathy That Counts
You have probably noticed that Love and Logic parents react quite
differently from other parents when kids make mistakes. We don’t get
angry, we don’t say, “I told you so,” and we don’t sit our kids down and
lecture them about their errors. If we did those things, we would be