If you're not an Aldort fan....

green_momma2007 · Dec 1, 2010

I read Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves and I just don't like Aldort. Please, don't take this thread the wrong way if you love Aldort and her method works for you. I'm just looking for other GD authors out there. 
Part of the reason I don't like Aldort is that her approach to discipline is a bit unbelievable to me. It's either your child will be ok with most things if you just respect them or if you phrase things the right way, and if for some reason she has a tantrum then you should be happy that she feels secure enough to have a tantrum and what not. In my experience, children are not little adults, and just because an adult feels better if you empathize and reason with them, does not mean that it will work with a child. At least not my kids.
So, if you're not a fan of Aldort, what other GD/AP oriented discipline books have you found helpful?

LynnS6 · Dec 1, 2010

I'm not an Aldort fan, not because I don't like her overall message but because her tone rubs me the wrong way.
 
My favorite parenting books are:
Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen -- hands down my favorite approach because it talks about the importance of connection, the relationship between connection and behavior, and how to work through things with your kids. It doesn't cover everything.
 
I'm also a big fan of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Her book "Kids, Parents & Power Struggles" is really good. I like it because it's practical, and it talks about the role of temperament.
 
I like "How to Talk So Your Children Will Listen and Listen So Your Children Will Talk" by Faber & Mazlish because it's short, to the point and accessible. However, if you know a lot about non-violent communication, I suspect you'd find it simplistic.
 
I also like Anthony Wolf's The Secret of Parenting.

rissierae · Dec 1, 2010

I read that book too (with a very open mind) and left feeling like if I don't say the right thing to ds, I'm going to crush his spirit forever! I can see how it would work for some people, especially as the children get older, but I just had to take some ideas and leave others. She does have you think about your past a lot, and what it made me realize is that (for the most part) I really like the way my mom raised me. And as a child I had structure and boundaries, and, yes, got into trouble, but I have always had a great trusting relationship with my mom.
 
That said, I've been keeping my eye out for another book too. My sister has told me about a book or method called Conscious Discipline. It sounds pretty similar, but there are consequences. I have yet to read it, from what I understand they use timeouts, but it's a timeout from the situation for child and caregiver to step back and try to work it out or talk about it. Not for the child to just sit in a corner by himself and feel like he is 'bad.'

SollysMom · Dec 1, 2010

<div class="quote-container">Quote:
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by rissierae <a href="/community/forum/thread/1282799/if-you-re-not-an-aldort-fan#post_16085086"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border-right:0px solid;border-top:0px solid;border-left:0px solid;border-bottom:0px solid;"></a> That said, I've been keeping my eye out for another book too. My sister has told me about a book or method called Conscious Discipline. It sounds pretty similar, but there are consequences. I have yet to read it, from what I understand they use timeouts, but it's a timeout from the situation for child and caregiver to step back and try to work it out or talk about it. Not for the child to just sit in a corner by himself and feel like he is 'bad.'
 
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We (especially my husband) do this with DS1 a lot. We don't call it a time out, but sometimes we just need to remove him from a situation. Not even necessarily to talk about the "issue", but to distract, redirect, give him a chance to calm down, etc. One time DH took him into the other room for one of these during dinner at my parents' house, and I cringed so much when my brother-in-law told my nephew that he was on a time-out.

oaktreemama · Dec 1, 2010

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I do this as well.
 
I also enjoyed Simplicity Parenting a lot. I am not a Waldorf Mom by any stretch of the imagination but enjoyed the respectful tone and the ideas about keeping home life, school life, play life, and discipline simple and fair.

GuildJenn · Dec 1, 2010

<div class="quote-container">Quote:
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by LynnS6 <a href="/community/forum/thread/1282799/if-you-re-not-an-aldort-fan#post_16085047"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a> I'm not an Aldort fan, not because I don't like her overall message but because her tone rubs me the wrong way.
 
My favorite parenting books are:
Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen -- hands down my favorite approach because it talks about the importance of connection, the relationship between connection and behavior, and how to work through things with your kids. It doesn't cover everything.
 
I'm also a big fan of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Her book "Kids, Parents & Power Struggles" is really good. I like it because it's practical, and it talks about the role of temperament.
 
I like "How to Talk So Your Children Will Listen and Listen So Your Children Will Talk" by Faber & Mazlish because it's short, to the point and accessible. However, if you know a lot about non-violent communication, I suspect you'd find it simplistic.
 
I also like Anthony Wolf's The Secret of Parenting.
 
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All of these are ones I've enjoyed. But I'll also add in Barbara Coloroso's Kids are Worth It! She's a little short on practical techniques, especially in the preschool ages, but I love how she gives tools to evaluate any discipline method against principles without actually trying to go through and discredit any or push too many of hers.

Llyra · Dec 1, 2010

I'd also vote for Kids Are Worth It! 
I got a lot out of that book.

applecider · Dec 1, 2010

I'm reading "Easy to Love Difficult to Discipline" right now. Really liking it!

4Marmalade · Dec 2, 2010

<div class="quote-container">Quote:
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by LynnS6 <a href="/community/forum/thread/1282799/if-you-re-not-an-aldort-fan#post_16085047"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a> I'm not an Aldort fan, not because I don't like her overall message but because her tone rubs me the wrong way.
 
My favorite parenting books are:
Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen -- hands down my favorite approach because it talks about the importance of connection, the relationship between connection and behavior, and how to work through things with your kids. It doesn't cover everything.
 
I'm also a big fan of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Her book "Kids, Parents & Power Struggles" is really good. I like it because it's practical, and it talks about the role of temperament.
 
I like "How to Talk So Your Children Will Listen and Listen So Your Children Will Talk" by Faber & Mazlish because it's short, to the point and accessible. However, if you know a lot about non-violent communication, I suspect you'd find it simplistic.
 
I also like Anthony Wolf's The Secret of Parenting.
 
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I like all of these too along with Barbara Coloroso. I have a couple of them and re-read them once in a while when we're going through a rough spot. While I love the playful parenting approach I find it very difficult to implement with my oldest ds who has some sensory, anxiety issues. Joking around with him usually sets off an even worse tantrum or else gets him completely and totally wound up. It works better for dd1.

One_Girl · Dec 2, 2010

<div class="quote-container">Quote:
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by LynnS6 <a href="/community/forum/thread/1282799/if-you-re-not-an-aldort-fan#post_16085047"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border-bottom:0px solid;border-left:0px solid;border-top:0px solid;border-right:0px solid;"></a> I'm not an Aldort fan, not because I don't like her overall message but because her tone rubs me the wrong way.
 
My favorite parenting books are:
Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen -- hands down my favorite approach because it talks about the importance of connection, the relationship between connection and behavior, and how to work through things with your kids. It doesn't cover everything.
 
I'm also a big fan of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Her book "Kids, Parents & Power Struggles" is really good. I like it because it's practical, and it talks about the role of temperament.
 
I like "How to Talk So Your Children Will Listen and Listen So Your Children Will Talk" by Faber & Mazlish because it's short, to the point and accessible. However, if you know a lot about non-violent communication, I suspect you'd find it simplistic.
 
I also like Anthony Wolf's The Secret of Parenting.
 
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</div>
 
I like these ones and Adventures in Gentle Discipline, Time In When Time Out Isn't Working, and Dr. Sear's Discipline book (though he is a little harsh). I think that Aldort's ideas are good though from what you describe, especially now that my dd is older and I have seen that an approach like that does work. When my dd was younger I didn't like books that didn't have more concrete ideas though because I just couldn't envision an approach tlike taht working, but now that my dd is older and that is what I just naturally did, for the most part, I think that it can work.

Starflower · Dec 2, 2010

Subbing. What a great thread! I read the Aldort book and found it lacking in follow through.
 
I really like the Kurcinka books - all of them but the Power Stuggle one is my favorite - I found it even more helpful than the Spirited Child book.
 
"Playful Parenting" is excellent and my DD responds very well to this type of interaction, however, it is exhausting to use playfulness with her all the time. It did help me to branch out in ways of interacting playfully though and I think it really helped me to reconnect with DD. It makes a great companion to "Hold On To Your Kids" which is a very dense read and is more about philosophies of attachment than practical advice. There is some advice about how to reconnect in HOTYK but "Playful Parenting" really goes into it.
 
"How to Talk to Your Kids..." is also wonderful. It helped me learn to be quiet and not ask so many questions. And I also liked Dr. Greene's "The Explosive Child". I found the "How to Talk" book to be a great companion to the Explosive Child book because they suggest the same basic problem solving technique but I found it easier to follow the steps in the "How to Talk..." book.
 
Oh, and I am in the last stretch of reading "Emotional Intensity in the Gifted Student" which at first I found irritating and a bit overly simplified, but then I got to some really good questionaires and practical ideas so I think it's worth reading after all. She gives some guidelines about how to do family meetings we are going to try. We've tried to do family meetings in the past and have been met with much resistance so I'm looking for more ways to encourage DD to be involved. We always try to involve her in decisions which affect her, but often she refuses to participate. I'm hoping some ideas from "Emotional Intensity" will help us help her to be more of a team player.
 
I will definitely check out some of the others on this list. Thanks!

beebalmmama · Dec 2, 2010

I really like Kurcinka's books. I didn't read them all cover to cover, but will probably be checking them out from the library again. We were having some MAJOR meltdowns and aggressive behavior in ds, 4 at the time. I found her discussions on personality traits and their needs very interesting and helpful. I think it really helped dh considering they are total opposite. For example we had been trying to physically remove ds because of his dangerous behavior, which then only resulted in him hitting/lashing out more. When I readsome of the traits she describes it sounded just like him and realized the last thing he needed in those moments was for anyone to touch him or get in his "space". So we're still working on giving him his space but not allowing him to hurt others in those moments.

Anandamama · Dec 16, 2010

I also had a lot of problems with Aldort's book, "Raising our Children..." It seemed over the top to me. I know several parents who really took her ideas to heart and implemented them as purely as they could. All have regretted a lot of the decisions they made when their children were young. They will tell you that their older children are less flexible and more emotionally volatile than their younger siblings who were raised with more boundaries and less catering to their preferences. 
I read the book within a Non-Violent Communication for Parents group and it did generate a lot of interesting discussions and controversy! I did get something very valuable from the book along the lines of "empathizing with your child will never be bad and will always help to foster connection between you and your child". 
I like many of the book suggestions here and I'd like to add, "Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids". A really great, practical guide on how to cultivate a cooperative, respectful, harmonious dynamic in your family.
Non-Violent Communication by Rosenberg is also great. It's not specifically about kids but about re-orienting our communication practices to have honest, compassionate, productive connection with anyone.

Courtney-Ostaff · Dec 17, 2010

I read Aldort, and quite frankly, I thought it was a little "hippie-dippie." (And I can say that, because my parents are/were big-time hippies).
 
I thought Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child by Dr. Gottman said essentially the same things in a format that was more concrete and accessible to me. I tend towards an intellectual point of view, FWIW.
 
<a class="sim-img-title" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325&tag=motheringhud-20&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fredirect.html%3Fie%3DUTF8%26linkCode%3Dur2%26camp%3D1789%26creative%3D9325%26tag%3Dmotheringhud-20%26location%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.amazon.com%252FPositive-Discipline-Preschoolers-Years-Raising-Responsible%252Fdp%252F0307341607%252Fref%253Dpd_sim_b_53" style="color:rgb(0,51,153);font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank" title="Positive Discipline for Preschoolers: For Their Early Years--Raising Children Who are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful (Positive Discipline Library) (Paperback)">Positive Discipline for Preschoolers: For Th...</a><img alt="" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=motheringhud-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border:0px solid;border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;border-left-style:none;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;" width="1">by Jane Nelsen Ed.D I also found very valuable. Also, a friend lent me <a class="sim-img-title" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325&tag=motheringhud-20&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fredirect.html%3Fie%3DUTF8%26linkCode%3Dur2%26camp%3D1789%26creative%3D9325%26tag%3Dmotheringhud-20%26location%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.amazon.com%252FEveryday-Blessings-Inner-Mindful-Parenting%252Fdp%252F0786883146%252Fref%253Dpd_sim_b_54" style="color:rgb(0,51,153);font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank" title="Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting (Paperback)">Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful...</a><img alt="" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=motheringhud-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border:0px solid;border-top-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;border-left-style:none;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;" width="1">by Myla Kabat-zinn, and I thought it was nice, but not exactly a parenting book, per se.

chaoticzenmom · Dec 17, 2010

I'm not an aldort fan either. I've read several of her articles and I always end the article thinking "Does she really have any kids?" One article said that if your infant hates the car seat...don't go anywhere in the car.<img alt="eyesroll.gif" src="http://files.mothering.com/images/smilies/eyesroll.gif">
 
My favorites have been
Alfie Kohn's dvd "Unconditional Parenting." (learned to start thinking about behavior/control differently)
"How to talk so your kids will listen" (learned small ways that I can add more respect into our relationship)
"Raising your spirited Child" (learned how my dd and I are so different and how to meet her needs or at least understand them)
"Siblings without Rivalry" (an extension of "how to talk" and really eye opening)
"Simplicity Parenting". (learned how the craziness in our house agitates my kids and how to fix it)

If you're not an Aldort fan....

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