Reddit reviews The Parent's Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting
We found 3 Reddit comments about The Parent's Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
We found 3 Reddit comments about The Parent's Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I don't have kids but I found that reading some parenting books has helped me to understand both about myself and things that my parents did wrong, and how normal healthy parents respond to their kids. "The Conscious Parent" is an amazing book for this. It is to teach parents how to respond to their kids in a healthy way while being conscious of their own reactions and feelings and how to NOT put your issues on your kid. It's a great book. I love what the author is doing in trying to teach parents how to respond to their kids lovingly and not as a reaction /due to their own issues.
https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Parent-Transforming-Ourselves-Empowering/dp/1897238452
This STEP parenting series is also good about how to talk to kids and what consequences are supposed to be like. (not crazy insane screaming punishments and 6 month groundings, like happened at my house) There's a different book for each age range.
https://www.amazon.com/Parents-Handbook-Systematic-Effective-Parenting/dp/0979554209/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504368293&sr=1-1&keywords=step+parenting+systematic
The fact that you are concerned about how to best respond to your potential child and how it will make them feel means you are already far ahead of your parents. N parents don't think about this stuff.
I believe my stepdaughter (now 20) has bpd. She wasn't particularly bratty as a teen, but I think part of the reason for that was because I worked with seriously troubled teens and my stepkids knew not to tangle with me. You are right, being a brat is a normal part of being a teen. Couple this with an unstable birth mother, a stepparent, and the "I can just go to my other parent's house" and your stepdaughter probably has it much worse than others.
The behaviors that I noticed that led me to believe that my stepdaughter has bpd wasn't being a brat and talking back. Instead, this is what I saw. We started noticing these things when she was around 10 years old, but there is no telling when they each actually began.
Being a brat as a teenager is normal. I hope that you read this stuff and say, "Wow, my stepdaughter is just a brat. This is great." Even with that...parenting a teen can be super hard. I worked with seriously troubled teens for 15 years, and I basically consider that I failed in parenting my stepchildren through their teens. Well, that is being really hard on myself. But my stepdaughter ended up on drugs, dropped out of school 3 months before graduation and got pregnant at 18 - she was living with her birth mother at the time, but still I raised her not to do those things. My stepson, 18, was grounded for the majority of his high school years. He has a genius IQ, but he is working at a factory now because his grades were too low to go to college. But...my stepdaughter is pretty stable now. She's got a new boyfriend who is a good person. She's pregnant again, but it's because an IUD failed, not because she was being irresponsible. She's kept her job for a year. She's uBPD, everything is likely to come crashing down eventually, but right now things are good for her. My stepson is doing very well at his job, we weren't sure that would happen, and he's saving for college.
My point is that the teen years can be really hard, but if you parent well enough things will stabilize when they get past their teens. You just need to keep them alive, in school and out of trouble with the law. The things that you try to teach them now are going to bounce right off of them. I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "Mom told me." "Mom tried to tell me." "Mom warned me." All of those things I said didn't help much when they were in their teens, but they remember them now that they are older. When I worked with seriously troubled teens we would say that we were planting seeds. You teach teens things, they don't accept them, they don't use them...but when they are older they will remember and use what you taught them (hopefully).
You may take at look at a book called The Parent's Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting it's the parenting method that was taught to parents when I worked with troubled teens. There is also a free parenting course on Coursera. It is mainly focused on younger children, but then at the end tells you how to tweak things for teens. You can take the course for free by auditing it, no need to pay, do quizzes or assignments. I'd also recommend skipping the recommended readings as they are not necessary.
I've worked in child care for 14 years and have two kids. I use S.T.E.P. in the classroom and at home. If you can take the class, awesome. If you can't, the book is cheap, short and self explanatory. Good luck