Christmas reading to make family life much happier :-)

[emmaagain]

Based around Non-coercive parenting/ common preference finding...

Anyone else encountered this sort of philosophy, either through Alfie Kohn or Deborah Jackson or similar, or through the Taking Children Seriously philosophy, or via John Holt and the unschooling movement?

I'm moved to mention it because of all those "My 3 year old is a nightmare" type threads around at the moment, and being aware that everyone will be spending lots of time with their children over the next week, and often under the judgemental gaze of extended family.

It's a whole approach to interacting with one's children which sidesteps all that control/discipline/ill-discipline/nightmare tantrums scenario - being a trusted advisor rather than the authority figure.

Highly recommend Alfie Kohn as Christmas reading - pretty light. Deborah Jackson (something like "Letting go as children grow") is just delightful, although for those of us whose Mums read Alison Stallibrass "The Self-Respecting Child" in the 1970s, it's nothing very new.

And for the hard core philosophy, it has to be the TCS site

An alternative to the power struggles - a Christmas present from me