Parenting With Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility

Instead of telling their children what to do, they put the burden of
decision making on their kids’ shoulders. They establish options within
limits.^2 Thus, by the time the children become teens, they are used to
making good decisions.

The Paradox of Success and Failure

Although we’re tempted to do otherwise, we have to admit there is no
surefire, absolute, guaranteed-or-your-money-back approach to raising
responsible children. No expert in the field can honestly say, “If you
operate this way, it’ll work every time.” Just because we do something
correctly doesn’t mean it will work out the way we’d hoped.
We all have examples of parents who employ very faulty parenting
techniques but whose children come out smelling like roses. And we
know of those who do everything “right” but end up raising kids who
would make Attila the Hun look like an Eagle Scout.
Nothing in parenting is sure. However, we increase the odds of raising
responsible kids when we take thoughtful risks. We do that when we
allow our children — get this — to fail. In fact, unless we allow them to
fail, sometimes grandiosely, we cannot allow our children to choose
success.

LOVE AND LOGIC TIP 2

Unfortunately,  When    Our Gut Talks,  Our Head    Listens

Love    and Logic   techniques  may rub some    parents the wrong   way.

Allowing    kids    to  fail    with    love    and letting the significant learning

opportunities    (SLOs)  do  the     teaching    are     principles  that    may     go

against the parental    grain.  Most    of  us  raise   our children    based   on  our

gut  reactions.  But     how     do  we  know    whether     such    responses   are

trustworthy or  just    the result  of  bad lasagna?

Actually,   adult   “gut    reactions”  are the results of  childhood