parenting books

[gordonpym]

I'm having a hard time with my sons, 2.5 and almost 6, and I don't like the mum i have become. I used to enjoy them a lot more and now we face a conflict at least once a day.
We have relocated a couple of months ago, so I easied discipline because it hasn't been easy for them, but now they have gone wild, I feel lonely and feed up. So, I was thinking to order: How to talk so children... and I wanted to add other titles, what are your suggestions?
Do you know Toddler taming, by Christopher Green? I have read here and there about unconditional parenting and playful parenting but I am not so sure, so please tell me about these books.

Thank you!!

I have recently bought How to talk so children.... as I too have become a bit of a shouty mum with my 2 DS( 2 & 4) but for me it seems to rely on the children being responsive and rational which my children are not!

I have found magic 1-2-3 very helpful as my children know there is a consequence that will be followed up on if I get to 3. It gives simple ideas of how to introduce the ideas and I find counting gives me a chance for a few deep breaths myself.

I have also recently read Raising your spirited child as my DS1 is very emotional and it has helped me get an insight into how he must feels about things.

It is very wearing at this age or should that read at all ages?

Just physically tiring them out seems to help the most.

I haven't actually read it but you could try Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph Amazon
I have 3 DSs and I think sometimes we have unrealistic expectations of them. They are very physical and I found at that age that tiring them out worked best. If you start negative it gets into a downward spiral-I used to go into another room, count to ten, and come back and find something positive to say and things generally improved.

Message withdrawn

How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk.

Unconditional parenting.

I have raising boys, which I liked very much. It explains how they think and why they behave the way they do (testosterone!), and its main message is about the importance of the male model to guide them. The fact is DH is abroad 180 days/year, so zip for the male model, and now I know why they want to climb, jump and run all the time,but if I need them to stay close because we are in the underground or stop jumping and running in a crowded bus, the book is no help.

I bought 'Adventures in Gentle Discipline' by Hilary Flower, a LLL publication,because I was all out of ideas with DS1. I found it very useful. It's very anecdotal with other parents PoV adn tactics for pealing with children.
I know that's not really what you asked though.
How to talk... is fab IME as quite often you don't have a situation to resolve, it gets avoided by your wording.

tactics for dealing not pealing

I really liked Toddler Taming.

The trouble with How to talk I think is it does rely on the children responding to reason and logic - which for children is not always the case.

An example I read this morning was all about a 4 year old and 2 year old not sharing -
Cue mum - 'Gee, what I can see here is one of you has a toy but the other one realy wants it. I know you two are smart enough to work it out...'

In said book children talk calmly and arrange a sharing solution.

In my real life older child hits smaller child, smaller child fights back, lots of tears, mother snatches toy and says no one can have it....more tears etc etc.

Is it just me ?

I don't find 'How to Talk' that helpful - I'd say worth a read, but it didn't really cut it for me.

I like Raising Happy Children which I find more realistic and has a whole range of different strategies so you can kind of experiment to find things that work well.

Our library has a whole shelf of parenting books (helpfully placed above small child reach in the childrens section).

We've just borrowed The Explosive Child which I am finding really interesting, my dd isn't particularly extreme but she does get frustrated & blow up sometimes, and the book talks a lot about explicitly teaching children different ways of responding to difficult situations.

I think children do respond to reason. But you need fabulous communication skills as well as fabulous reasoning skills to get the message across to them!

Come to think of it, the other book that I've found helpful is
People Skills. Although it is about improving communication skills with other adults, actually it is really helpful for dealing with children too.

Thank you so much to all of you! My DC usually behave like pippy's. I gave a look at the local library, but they had only books about baby care, reason why I wanted to order them on the internet. I'll go at some bigger library, it's worth a visit, and it can only improve my spanish! , how do you say parenting books in spanish?? llibros para padres??