I have heard about Love and Logic over the years by different people at different times, but I have never bothered to look into it as I didn't feel like it was something that would be beneficial or useful to me. I finally had the motivation to look into it and it makes me sick.
Parenting With Love and Logic is the most depressing, put down, low book I have ever read. I couldn't even finish it. I just skimmed through the end, and later that night my husband read it and looked into the author's history. It is so sick and disturbing, I'm not sure how much I will write here.
First of all, the author, Foster Cline, begins the book by talking about how these days are so much harder and difficult for our children than it has been in the past, and that the ways we were raised won't work for today's kids. That is a huge red flag!!!!! What??? Are children that much different than their parents when they were kids? I don't think so. Kids are kids. Then he gives the most horrendous examples of bad behaviour of kids I have ever heard-- running all over the grocery store, adding things to the cart, and the mother's attempt to herd them back in and then giving up by buying a treat to keep them under control. The book is full of examples of kids acting terribly and playing on the fear parents have that their child won't turn out unless they follow the misnamed method of Love and Logic.
There is no love in this book. There is no appreciation of children in this book. The parents are not supposed to explain things to the kids because that keeps them from thinking on their own. The parents are supposed to let the kids face the consequences of their decisions by allowing them to sleep in and miss the school bus and then stay in their room all day until they would have come home, by giving away a 7 year old girl's dog because she didn't feed it, by allowing them to not wear their coat when it's cold and then taunt them that you are warm because you wore your coat, to go without dinner because they didn't finish their chores in time. Cline claims that this is teaching your child to think and be responsible because they are facing the consequences. but these are not natural consequences, these are consequences that the parent has complete control over. So the parent is basically manipulating the child.
The devil will tell 10 truths to get you to believe that 1 lie. In this case, Cline is playing on parents' fears that if they don't do what he says, then their child won't become responsible or able to make decisions. He preempts concerns of parents by saying that you don't want to make the same mistakes your parents did towards you, and any concern actually shows you are on the right path. And any parent who disagrees is too protective of their child and is not allowing their child to grow into a responsible adult. He also talks a lot about how parents love their kids too much and keep them facing consequences. So even though it may be hard to follow this method sometimes and taunt your child and watch him suffer, it will be better in the long run, because he'll learn responsibility. So don't listen to that inner voice, just follow the program.
I think the majority of the parents who say they like Love and Logic, like it because they will just take some of the truths out, like follow through on any threat you make, and if you are not willing to follow through, then don't threaten it. They also like the idea of having responsible kids. And hopefully, they do listen to their conscience and don't take the method to the full.
Now it gets worse. It turns out that Foster Cline, M.D. lost his medical license in Colorado because of his Holding therapy and his Rebirth therapy for abused an troubled kids. 5 children suffocated during these treatments, but not with him as the therapist of course, just other therapists whom he trained. There are videos and comments by different people, some of them survivors of these terrible therapies. It is not for the tender hearted. My husband watched some of them and told me not too, which I didn't want to anyway. Now it is 3 a.m. and I couldn't sleep because of it. This relieves me a little that maybe someone can be warned against this ideology. Anything from a man who can stand to watch small children in pain with those awful therapies is evil.
Stay far away from Love and Logic. Warn your friends and neighbors. Go do some research on Foster Cline, read the book. We have got to be more vigilant when it comes to stuff like this. We can't just accept every little thing, or say well it's just not for me. This is terrible for these kids growing up this way. It is not fair.
6 comments:
Bless you. In my gut, I know Love and Logic is just not right. I am working on a paper just now to expose the underlying ideology of the program and why so many parents seem to be seduced by it.
Thank you for your comments.
Thank you. I work in a school where this is implemented, and I hate it. They are constantly "correcting" me when I show compassion. I work with underprivileged children and I've actually seen staff throw away their snack because they aren't using their manners. This is upsetting because it may be their last meal of the day, and they may not know what they did was rude. There is no patience, no love, only consequences. My style has always been to show you care, and that you will do your best to protect them, and if they act out, then they miss out on fun, not necessities.
So true - I am a au-pair and my host parents believe in raisin there kids towards this book - I read it and told them i disagree - having alot of childcare experience - but they just wont listen.
i just got back from my first love & logic meeting last night, and i had to research what other parents think of this method because so much of what i heard didn't sit well with me. i'm so glad to find you had the same issues i did with the material. the meeting felt like an "intervention". when i explained to the group that my son is PDD-NOS, a developmental disorder that falls within the autism spectrum, the instructor completely failed to verify with me how much i consider my son to be able to understand, and instead she claimed him a stubborn child who behaves the way he does to manipulate us. she claimed his "late talking" was him choosing to store up information and only start speaking all at once whenever he felt like it, when in reality he can speak today because of the years of early intervention, occupational and speech therapies, and our relentless help, repetition and reinforcement at home. it was a very slow and painful process, and he still has long ways to go. we still coach him daily on how to deal with frustration and many other emotions. the thing that disturbed me the most was that the group was composed by all young mothers, who have never dealt with the terrible two's or terrifying threes before, and they were all being instructed to never explain cause and consequence to their child - just to apply the consequence when their kids "blow it". they expect toddlers to behave like 6 year olds, and they "teach them lessons" if they don't.
even if this method works as they like to think it does, i can't help but think these kids will grow up to be judgmental jerks. they're trained to be so strictly structured, they won't have the notion of expressing true empathy (the system constantly talks about showing empathy, but it's often done in a very patronizing way), solidarity or charity because after all... it's your own darn fault regardless, and you'll just have to deal with it.
I can't tell you how glad I am to know I'm not the only one who is baffled and horrified by the popularity of this parenting method. Like OffenClan, I went to my first class tonight and came home feeling like I needed to take a shower or something...just icky. We watched a video of Cline demonstrating Love and Logic-style parent/child dialogue. My mouth hit the floor the minute this man started speaking. He was sarcastic, disrespectful and chock full of inconsistencies. For example: he mentioned the "good neighbor" philosophy that you should never speak to your children less respectfully than you'd speak to a neighbor whom you like. If I talked to my neighbors the way this man spoke to those children they'd never speak to me again. The gist of one of the demonstrations was emphasizing to the kid that he shouldn't act up during an upcoming family vacation. Cline told the kid that he'd better not ruin his vacation and if he did he'd be sent home on a plane by himself. In another mock discussion he refers to the kid's sports teammates as his "tacky little friends." I seriously thought the whole thing was a joke and that the school psychologist who was serving as the class facilitator would say "just kidding! That's actually an example of what not to do." When that didn't happen, I told her that the clip made me uncomfortable and why. She and the other 30 or so parents in the room just stared at me like I had developed a contageous disease. One woman glared at me and said that's exactly how she parents her kids now. The psychologist asked the others if they had any similar reservations. Crickets. She then and said that Cline should be taken with a grain of salt and that he can be a bit much for some people. Okay, so you shouldn't listen to the guy who developed the program 'cause he's a loose canon, but you should follow his teachings anyway. Huh? After I got home I started looking into the program, thinking that I'd heard Foster Cline's name somewhere before. After a bit of looking online I realized why he sounded familiar: he's the guy who developed attachment therapy, the faux-psychology practice that advocates stuff like sitting on your kids until they submit. It also spawned the "rebirthing" method that has killed at least one child. I read about attachment therapy after seeing an interview with the Jackson boys, a group of kids who were almost starved to death by their foster (and later adoptive) parents. Like a lot of other foster parents, they were practicing attachement therapy. After reading about Foster Cline's background there's no way I'm going to any more classes. I'm not sure how parents get sucked in by this quack and his marketing machine, but my family and I are not going to be part of it.
Wow, it seems like a lot of people on here are not reading the same Love and Logic that I have read. As a teacher, I can tell you that it does work. Also, I find that the writers (I don't know about Cline, I am a bigger fan of Jim Fay and his son) rather than expecting too much from children, are actually showing great respect by believing that they can be taught to reason. I understand that as parents, you hate the idea of using a discipline method where your child will feel any type of pain (physical or emotional), but what the people behind Love and Logic are hoping to do is to equip us as parent to prepare our children for the real world, where there are no warnings about our mistakes, where there are painful consequences to our poor choices, and where we have to think for ourselves. That being said, I am sure that there are people out there who have read the Love and Logic materials, and are using them in a way very different from what the Fays would have envisioned (I would imagine that is what is happening at the school where students snacks are being thrown away). As with any methodology, someone can use it inappropriately. I hope that whatever method you have found to use with your child, it is something that will prepare them for life as adults, rather than just making for a carefree childhood.
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