Book Club: Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child

Parenting is teaching your children that there are no limits to what they can achieve, while teaching them that there are limits to what they can do.  

This dichotomy is challenging to teach and is the driving force behind the ever growing wine (whine?) industry. 

Okay, maybe it isn't the driving force, but it certainly plays a role. 

Our toddler is a sweet, earnest, intelligent and loving little human who is more stubborn than anyone I have ever met. 

A friend pointed me to this book "Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child" and after buying the book, I realized I made a $7.70 mistake in thinking I could power through the book this month.  So I subscribed to Audible and got the audio book. 

ABSOLUTELY worth the listen.  I feel like I have added tools to my parenting toolbox in a simple, straight-forward and data driven way.  The author lays out examples, guides you in examining your personality and the personality of your kid, and has you walk through typical struggles with your kid to highlight what ACTUALLY WORKS when you are setting limits. 

The takeaway for me has been that kids learn through our actions. If our words say "put your shoes on" and our actions don't require that of them, we are teaching them not to value what we say. 

I hope my daughters know that the world is theirs to conquer - whatever that means for them.  I hope they understand limits, why they are there, why they are meaningful and why they aren't.  

There will be limits that I hope they always respect, and there will be limits that I hope to God they fearlessly break through.  Maybe good parenting looks like teaching them which ones are which.     

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” -Pablo Picasso

The world is yours kid. Except that. That belongs to your sister. Put it down. 

~D & H