Tools for Parents

--- tags: parenting, children, society --- # Tools for Parents Are you, as my friend Darlene puts it, looking to “preserve your child's respect and dignity, their voice and freedom to express themselves”, and yet do so in a civil way? Are you are further wanting to give your child the tools to navigate the world in such a way by themselves, both as children and later as adults? If so, then check out these 5 great tools which I have found over the years. I recommend learning these tools in order, starting from #1. The first 2 tools -- NVC & PL&L -- are *basic to all human contact*. Learn these 2 first, and you've got the foundation for just communication, understanding, limit-setting, respect, integrity, and self-responsibility both in private and public life. You could not give your child a better gift for life than these 2 tools. The 3rd tool, “How to Talk to Kids..” is a combination of tools gleaned from two very astute and insightful authors. It organizes the hodge-podge of situations that their clients and parents in their focus-groups have faced. The 4th (2 books from Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky) give you training in what to look out for and to identify in a ‘hurt child’, and how to ameliorate or at least help with these problems. Tools 3 and 4 I learned in my service as a [CASA advocate](/@androclus/casa). The 5th and last tool -- Philosophical MidWifery (PMW) -- is a much higher quality tool for personal growth and for breaking the ties of Sisyphus-ean limits on us, that our families have unknowingly passed down -- our grandparents to our parents to us to our children. It takes years to master, but is well worth it. I would recommend learning this once you have gotten a solid foundation in the first 4. ## 1. NVC NVC is awesome. Much info, though, so I made a [separate page](/@androclus/nvc). Be sure to catch the section on Parenting with NVC. ## 2. Parenting with Love and Logic Book: [Parenting with Love and Logic (Hardcover)](https://bookscouter.com/buy/1576839540-parenting-with-love-and-logic-updated-and-expanded-edition), also available in Kindle, and the audio formats (Audio CD, and Audible) which are great for listening in car or with MP3-player/phone, etc. There are also other spin-off books focused on very young children or teens/young-adults. This is a great tool/mind-set to have also for simply dealing with everyone in your life. You'd be surprised (maybe not?) how many fully-grown adults are still ‘acting like children’, and how lovely it is to have PL&L skills to work with them in a just way and encourage them to learn from their mistakes and take good credit for their successes! I see that they also have a [CD audiobook](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1930429258/) specifically on power struggles, though I have not tried it. ## 3. How / Talk / Kids / Listen Book: [How to Talk to Kids so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk](https://bookscouter.com/buy/1451663889-how-to-talk-so-kids-will-listen-listen-so-kids-will-talk) Also, audiobook. But the book lots of fun little cartoons and illustrations. This book was written by two women with *lots* of experience, not only with their own kids, but with training from a great psychologist, and who led parental focus groups for years. Tons of wisdom. They admit (as do all authors) that nothing is guaranteed 100%, but that these will give you ideas. IMHO, much of this book could benefit had the authors known (1) NVC and (2) PL&L and after studying those two above, you will see it in this book. But there are also many other situations that come up as well, that they give added solutions and ideas for, so it is well worth it. Many parents do consider this the “parenting bible”. ## 4. The Hurt Child Two books by Gregory Keck and Regina Kupecky, experts at working with children, on how to work with, bond with, and help a child who has been the victim of neglect or abuse. Keck and Kupecky demonstrate that even the cases of children who have been hurt the most, can be healed -- and how to begin. These books should be mandatory for any parent, foster parent, or guardian, and whether the child is ‘hurt’ or not. These authors *know* what they are talking about, and you will definitely add to your skill-set working with kids (and even adults) just knowing these things. - Book: [Adopting the Hurt Child](https://bookscouter.com/buy/160006289X-adopting-the-hurt-child-hope-for-families-with-special-needs) - Book: [Parenting the Hurt Child](https://bookscouter.com/buy/1600062903-parenting-the-hurt-child-helping-adoptive-families-heal-and-) ## 5. Philosophical Midwifery [Pierre Grimes](/@androclus/pierre-grimes) in our time has done something extremely rare and beautiful: He has seen through into “the human problem”, and offered us a way out. It is a much more difficult path than any of the above, but ultimately even more rewarding. It can uncover the root problems we have that we did not even see, as well as where we got them -- so that we are now free to move forward. These problems have their roots in what he calls, a *‘pathologos’* -- a false image of the Self -- which comes from 1 or more scenes in childhood when we excelled past our parents in a free and open state, and they had to clamp us down in a way that we would never do it again. Our parents knew *that* they were doing it, they just didn't know *why*. And they themselves suffered the same from *their* parents. We *all* suffer, he says. It is not a matter of fault, or blaming our parents. “It goes back to the cave,” says Pierre. He explains how we can find the unique *why* within each of us, using his evolution of Socratic midwifery, he calls, *‘Philosophical Midwifery’* to finally cut off the passing down of the pathologos “virus” to our own children, and thus saving countless generations to come from suffering this invisible “monkey on our backs”. Both parents and children can resolve their unseen problems using this dialectic. It totally trumps all psychology, and gets to the core of problems. While it takes years to master, and is the hardest to learn, it often is the only thing that will get to a fundamental -- and invisible -- problem driving a conflict. Often people will accomplish in the matter of an hour or two what could not be seen in years of psychotherapy. Furthermore, it is *fun*! And if both participants are students of PMW, they can take turns being the 'midwife. I learned it through contact with [Pierre Grimes and the Noetic Society](/@androclus/pierre-grimes). - Book: [Philosophical Midwifery: A New Paradigm for Understanding Human Problems With Its Validation](https://bookscouter.com/buy/0964819112-philosophical-midwifery-a-new-paradigm-for-understanding-hum) - Pierre Grimes, Ph.D. with Regina Uliana, Ph.D. - [Noetic Society Archive](http://noeticsociety.org/archive) - Pierre midwifing people on their dreams and goals, and his followers studying the ‘wisdom of the ancients’, under his tutelage