When my girl was < 1 year, I bought a LOT of parenting books because the advertising promised me some sleep. Quickly formed a hypothesis that a large percentage of parenting book sales are completely desperate and sleep deprived moms for whom the content isn’t as important as the fact they’re trying SOMETHING.\u00a0Because as a how-to guide? Absolute useless. Which makes sense since human being aren’t automatons, thus it’s pretty much impossible to predict the result of any set of inputs.<\/p>\n
I haven’t found the toddler-themed books to be any better. “I hear that you are angry because I won’t let you go outside without a coat when it is 3 degrees” or the toddlereze version “Bean angry, don’t want coat” never once had my kid perk up and say “I’m glad you understand my frustration here. Now that you validate my point of view, sure I’ll do what you’ve asked of me”. My daughter seems to get angrier — “ok, you\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0I want ice cream for breakfast so why aren’t you doing it?!?”.<\/p>\n Choices are completely ineffective for us too. Presented two equally awesome choices (do you want\u00a0to go to the zoo or the aquarium), sure she’ll pick one. Otherwise she’ll make up a third option that she\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0like. Or go with “C: None of the above”. Which, stepping outside of the immediate situation … props to a 3 year old kid for the thought process. But it certainly didn’t help me navigate the day.<\/p>\n