MB: "'miss I haven't done my homework'
'get into the trolly, tell the dwarfes to budge up a bit!
and then I say 'You must be feeling fucking stupid now!'
Is that right?
Oh realised I should have ummed a bit before telling then to get into the trolly"
I don't know if it's the jet lag (just got back from the US) or general Friday hysteria, but I think in four years plus of Mnetting that this is the first time I've laughed out loud. (I'm a humourless old bag).
I bought HTT about a year ago, read it, tried it, it worked. Since then I have inevitably being backsliding faster than Kate Moss on Nicotine patches. The problem with HTT is that all that patient, positive parenting is so bloody fatiguing; I honestly find it less tiring to shout multiple times in a crescendo of increasing irritation 'Put your damned shoes on' than engage my 6 year old in a dialogue about her conflicted emotions relative to appropriate foot apparel.
And HTT and children not staying in bed after bedtime are incompatible. No active listening, no 'hmning' and certainly no fantasising: "Wouldn't it be lovely if you could stay up all evening with us drinking Cabernet Sav, sprawling on the sofa and tut tutting about the formulaeic but compulsive drivel that is 'House'" - no it bloody wouldn't. They should be in bed and silent - sleeping optional - which entirely precludes active or even inactive listening. I find hissing menancingly 'If you don't stay in bed I'll disembowel you' and meaning it, way more effective.
But to be fair to Cod, if I must, it is a good book and it is worth re-reading annually even if only to shift your parenting style from Guantanamo Bay battering to Derren Brown mental manipulation.
However, F&Z will tell you that for a genuine 'paradigm shift' (woohoo 90's management speak) in your approach to parenting only the crazily impractical but otherwise brilliant Alfie Cohen's "Unconditional Parenting" will do.