Taming the Lecture Bug (A REVIEW) ~ a book for parenting

Parenting is hard, and some days I wonder if I will ever get it right and figure out how to be the best Mom with all the right "moves." It is something I definitely need more information on every moment of every day as parenting doesn't take a break, ever. We (Hubby and I) are always saying we should get more books to read on parenting to help us figure it all out. But which ones should we read? Which ones have all the answers (or at least some)? I don't know the answer to that question, but I was happy to receive this book Taming the Lecture Bug and Getting Your Kids to Think, from Parenting Made Practical to get started.

What is Taming the Lecture Bug all about? Aren't lectures good? Do they really get through to our children? The answer in this book is, no. What we really need to do is turn the tables on the children, and get them to think. They aren't really "hearing" our lectures, and lecturing alone doesn't really get them to think or be accountable for their own actions. "When you lecture, your kids are unengaged because they know nothing is required of them." (page 19, Taming the Lecture Bug). Parenting requires more action, and less talking at our children about the things we are upset with them about. If they haven't taken out the garbage do we lecture them for the umpteenth time about how important it is to take out the garbage, and nag to get them to do it over and over again? Or, do we put the responsibility on their shoulders? This book has some great insight on how to do just that.

Taming the Lecture Bug also goes into how we need to train our children's heart, called heart-training, or teachable heart. Getting the kids to think about their actions leads them to have a teachable heart where they can think beyond themselves and really internalize how their actions affect others. There are several chapters on this, and even specific questions to guide the parent on what they can ask their children as they are heart-training their child.

A great quote that helped me feel less discouraged about my past parenting mistakes

The cool thing about reading this book is that I found myself nodding my head a lot, and really just saying "yes!" to everything that I read. The hard part about reading this book was that I worried about all the mistakes I have made already as a parent. I already have felt the weight of my bad parenting moments before this, but instead of getting discouraged about it, there is a lot of encouragement in this book. This quote was one of my favorites as far as feeling bad goes: "Don't get discouraged if you have older children and have never before used teaching like what you are reading in this book. Don't get overwhelmed either. Take it one step at a time and you will see progress. Be more determined than your children are and you will succeed." Steve and Leslie, Iowa.

It's easy to get discouraged when reading a parenting book, and feel like you've made too many mistakes already, but really with this parenting book I found myself more inspired as I thought about the things I was reading, and how I can use them with my own children. This book has a lot to offer, and has great insight to some of the "smooth moves" of parenting. With that said, I am really interested in some of the other titles that Parenting Made Practical has to offer. Some of the other crew members read different books like Why Can't I Get my Kids to Behave and some even watched some videos/DVD's like Dating, Courting & Choosing a Mate...What Works DVD. Both of those sound pretty interesting. There is also a DVD to go along with Taming the Lecture Bug, I didn't receive it, but others did. Might be interesting to see that too. Just click on the banner below to see what they had to say.