The book is tactical in nature and a quick, although repetitive read. It's broken into 3 sections. In the first section Karp tells us that toddlers are like "cavemen"-- not fully developed, lacking verbal skills and ruled by their emotions. Yeah, I didn't need a book to tell me that. The second section explains Karp's technique for communicating with toddlers using the "Fast Food Rule (FFR)" and "Toddlerese". The last section gives examples of what you can do to encourage good behavior, discourage not so good behavior and stop very bad or dangerous behavior.
First, what I liked about the book: I liked that he reminds us to acknowledge and respect our child's feelings, even in the midst of a tantrum. The FFR basically means that you repeat what your child is feeling, mirroring his emotions, before you communicate what you want him to do. (Just like the guy at McDonald's repeats your order back before he tells you to drive forward and pay him $5.50). This is a technique that I learned back when I was a peer counselor in high school AND college, so you think it would have stuck with me, but I never thought to try it with Baby M. Karp recommends doing the FFR in "Toddlerese" which is speaking in simple, repetitive phrases that toddlers understand even when upset. So you might say to your agitated child "Ball, ball, you want the ball!" before saying "but we have to share with Sam right now." I'm happy to report that the FFR + Toddlerese has been very effective in reducing Baby M's tantrums. Sometimes the tantrum starts anew when I get to the "but", but more than half of the time I'm able to quell the blow up. I also liked his suggestions to "play the boob" (e.g. try to put Baby M's shoes on his hands and allow him to show me the right way to do it), make up stories for teaching good behavior, and to use compromises. Baby M is really into "making deals" right now and we regularly bargain down reading "all the books" to reading two books. Yes, these techniques were already in my bag of tricks, but Karp's book reminded me to dust them off and now I'm using them more frequently.
What I didn't like was Karp's recommendation to excessively praise toddlers as a way of encouraging good behavior. If you follow parenting news, you've probably heard the debate about whether or not we should praise our kids at all, inspired by Alfie Kohn's book
So, with this book, like most parenting books I read, I'll take what works for us and forget about the rest.
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