you’ll know it’s working. But hold firm. If they can control you by
pushing your anger, sympathy, or guilt button, they’ll come rushing back
to it whenever they feel the need for control.
As you implement Love and Logic parenting, you will find that you
will grow as much as your children do. With every success you
experience, your self-concept will develop as much as theirs does.
What Love and Logic Is Not
Over the years since we started the research that led to this book and
through the seminars and research that have followed, we discovered how
good ideas and practices can be misconstrued, misrepresented, and taken
out of context. So it’s been said that “the road to hell is paved with good
intentions.” Perhaps on the way down, one might meet teens raised by
parents who read books on how to raise little angels. What went wrong?
Love and Logic does not guarantee angelic children and teens, but we
do know that the concepts, tools, and techniques of Love and Logic
provide the best chance for parental success. But even Love and Logic
can be misconstrued or misused. Love and Logic material is filled with
beautiful constructs that can be misapplied even by well-meaning
parents, especially if their own background is one of dysfunction, abuse,
and pain.
One of the interesting things about the Love and Logic method is that
if you don’t do it exactly right, it simply won’t work. For instance, we
place a great deal of emphasis on modeling. This is one of the great “E’s”
of Love and Logic — example — which, along with experience and
empathy, we feel forms the great backbone of effective parenting. And we
attempt throughout this book to help parents understand how to set
healthy, win-win examples. When parents have poor self-image, it’s hard
to set the example that even they themselves want their children to
emulate.
Since writing the first edition of this book, we have discovered some
common confusions unique to Love and Logic newbies. Specific Love