Review

Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child's Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days by Kevin Leman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I found many of the author's techniques helpful. I agree that a parent's job is to be a parent first and foremost and not to concentrate on being your child's friend. The writing is readable and interesting. I appreciated the anecdotes and humor. I think the main failing of this book is that the author doesn't provide alternatives for when the techniques don't work, he simply states that they will work! For example, he suggests that if you are shopping and you tell your child it is time to leave you should say it once and then walk away and don't look over your shoulder or wait. He states that your child will quickly run to catch you when they realize that you are leaving. Well, that may work with some children, but after trying it this weekend I can state that my boys did not care AT ALL that they had been left behind...even after leaving the building and waiting 15 minutes for them to decide they had been left. At that point it wasn't really feasible to leave small children alone any longer and I had to go retrieve them. This is one example of his "guaranteed to work" techniques that do not always work. I also just plain disagreed with some of the material such as the idea that a shy child is a selfish child who is just using shyness as way to gain power and manipulate others. I think that while some children may pretend to be shy in order to draw attention to themselves, many children are actually introverted by nature and it is not fair to force them to play with others or to suggest that they are being selfish if they would prefer to play by themselves. I could go on, but I will end here and in summary say that he has some useful advice, but, let's face it, no one has all the answers when it comes to raising kids!



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