Guerilla Parenting—Sanity for You and the Kids

Stand by Your Mandate

2011-02-01T17:52:00.008-05:00

“Hoping I’ll change my mind? I won’t, but you can keep asking.”

Don’t you hate hearing parents in supermarkets barking at their preschoolers in strollers? The kids want candy or other sweets conveniently displayed at their eye level, and they keep asking again and again. How is this best handled?

Guerilla Tip: If you need a starting point to increase family serenity, watch for mistakes other families make, and then do the opposite. You will never live long enough to make all your own mistakes.

Many parents clearly handle nagging kids with both harshness and weakness—sounds like a contradiction, to be harsh and weak?

The harshness is in the tone, “No, you heard me say it five times, and if you ask me one more time, I swear you won’t get TV…” The weakness is in assuming that if asked enough times, the parent will lose resolve and give in to the demand.

Why would that happen? A four-year old does not carry the voting power of an adult, as if there were any voting involved. You weigh a few factors and make a selective decision you can stand by. Do not tease the kids into thinking they are involved in making adult decisions beyond their domain.

Guerilla Tip: Since parenting is a big and joyful responsibility, take charge—that is your mandate.
But is a family a democracy or what? What? Let’s try this with a few analogies:
Is cooking a democracy? If so, what does it mean that too many cooks spoil the broth?
Is a car trip a democracy? Well, whose hands do the driving, or is that a group process, too? Then there’s that driver’s license thing and paying for gas. He who pays the piper picks the tune—otherwise, he stops paying the piper.
When all hands are on deck, do all hands also steer the ship?
On the ballroom floor, if a boy leads well, does that make him bossy or a good dancer? If a girl agrees the boy is leading because he asked her to dance—or due to their arm positions that indicate lead and follow—and instead she keeps pulling him in the moves she want, that is called back leading and would be bossy. Back leading is as unpleasant as any back seat driving, because leaders should lead and followers follow.
If you feel you tried everything in your family, with nothing working, there is still hope.

What plays on TV is a lot of “If you’ve tried everything, and diet and exercise don’t seem to be enough, take drugs—ours.” What does it mean you’ve tried everything? You tried two popular diets? Did you follow both at the same time so hard that you ate the total calories for both? Maybe your exercise consisted of jumping to conclusions instead of pushing yourself away from the table sooner?

Similarly, when friends tell me they’ve tried to get me all day long, it interests me to ask if they picked up a phone. They mean they thought about reaching me all day, but that is not the same as tried everything.

So maybe you haven’t tried everything. Just a thought.

Guerilla Tip: Don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t settle for a bad deal, either.
A parent once told me it was her job to say no. No, it is the parent’s job to be selective. Always try to say yes.

A good friend, Robin A. of Miami, FL, emailed me the following thought that came to her while driving:

"The love for children is almost opposite the love for a partner. With a partner, I try always to make him happy, assuming he is doing the same. But with children, unconditional love means teaching, too, so we can’t always make them happy, right? Our responsibility is to guide and teach as they grow. I applaud your preference for yes, don’t get me wrong, but no is inevitable a lot more often than with a partner. What do you think?"

Asking you the same thing, what do you think?

Guerilla Tip: Anytime kids try badgering, you have an opportunity to rise to the occasion lovingly and model the behavior you want. Say no once and do not repeat it.
I handled badgering in the following ways, and never repeated the ‘no’ part of the original answer:
Just stare the kid down—no words necessary.
“Relax, I got you this far.”
“Didn’t you just ask me that? Remember my answer?”
“Hoping to annoy me enough to change my mind? It won’t, but you can keep asking.” She will come interpret this statement to mean your hearing aid has been turned down, so asking will get her nothing. You can even delight at her persistence in advocating on her behalf. But she needs you to be the rock, because your steadiness is what gives a kid enormous comfort.
Use only one of the above techniques and remain serene in your delivery. You will get good results in discipline and in mutual respect.
When to modify a rule? If an eight-year old shows you that all his friends are crossing your little street themselves since six, maybe you have been too strict. If you cannot let go of your fear, meet him halfway. Let him cross in daylight only, never running, or find some other compromise that shows him he was heard. This is not badgering, since circumstances often change with age and new information is introduced.

How will you know he is ready? Ask him to tell you when the street is safe to cross and to listen for your okay.Guerilla Tip: Arrange a new situation so it is in the kid’s best interest to show you how ready he is—by showing how careful he can be.
Give him a stake in crossing carefully by making him want ownership of the safety issue—not for you, for himself. Under this setup, my kids earned my trust when they would see a car three blocks away and say it was not safe yet. It was in their interest to do so.
Be patient and be specific. Instead of “Clean up your room,” my request was “Take two minutes to pick up as much as you can from your bedroom floor. Go!”

Guerilla Tip: If you want something done, set a single activity and a finite time. Something done—nobody overwhelmed.
Esther M., a South Plainfield, NJ schoolteacher believes in saying it like you mean it, because clarity is love. During the winter, Esther tells her students at recess that it’s time to put on their jackets, period. She does not ask their permission, “It’s time to put on your jackets, okay?”

Guerilla Tip: Put a period at the end of your instructions, not a question mark. Incorrect punctuation is a typographical error. Ineffective leadership is suicide, and murder on kids.

As it became clear to me half a year into junior high school, an experienced teacher can retain charge of the class by starting off strict and lightening up over time. This leadership style produces a focused space for learning. A new teacher can lose charge by starting off loosy-goosy as everyone’s buddy and tightening up in anger and in vain. This style produces a noisy social arena where no ‘buddy’ will learn.

Guerilla Tip: When you are the one in charge, don’t be ashamed to maintain your authority.

Sloppy parenting produces sloppy results that will fall neatly into predictable patterns.
Maybe you worry about being in charge. It sounds formal. It’s a big responsibility to be responsible. It could mean being blamed, as in “You’re responsible it broke.” Well, being a parent is promoted as responsible good, not faulted as responsible bad.

For example, “Here is the strawberry shortcake you won, but you are responsible to finish it.” Since strawberry shortcake is very good, which responsible would that be for you? Can you accept your role? Write if you expect that to be a burden. As for blame, the kids won’t do that until later, when it’s much too late for them to get the full refund.

Guerilla Tip: If you can do this without training as many do, you can certainly do this with good ideas supporting you.

If you had bad experiences with those in charge, you could be concerned it will make you mean, and you don’t want to be mean. Of course not, but doing your job does no such thing automatically. Imagine acting as a tour guide who won’t guide the tour group for fear of being bossy. Instead, you keep asking what the tourists want to see. How would they know? They wanted you to guide them to the sites you’re supposed to know something about.

You know what’s mean? Taking 10 minutes to argue with a kid about taking medicine that the doctor ordered and you are trying to administer. Arguing is mean, as it makes the kid party to the adult decision of what the kid must take. That decision is already made. You made it. Yet, you have tricked a sick kid into questioning whether to follow doctor’s orders. Kids have no say in the matter, period. They don’t.

Mean is knowing that an action is not negotiable, but there you are negotiating it anyway. Or discussing anything that is not open for discussion. These are cruel. Don’t you remember being a kid? Did you appreciate being teased like this? Make an adult decision. Keep it simple. Include kids on choices that are truly theirs and on no others.

Guerilla Tip: Can you accept your role? Don’t burden kids with making hard choices beyond their years.

As a contribution to this book, Gaesha H. of New Brunswick, NJ said, off the top of her head, that parents would do well to “live large and in charge.” So if you either wanted the job or, in a blended family, accepted the job, enjoy the freedom and authority of the job—you have more choices than the kids do—and take it on like you mean it. Of course, anyone who is new gets a period of adjustment. Kids, too.
Keep your eyes open. There is a term of law called willful blindness that means purposely turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. Say it’s not your job, but the action can be costly, even criminal, because you can still be assigned blame and responsibility—the bad kind.

Guerilla Tip: If you choose to ignore unusual behavior you see in your kids, you will pay later. Playing dumb is not always as much fun as it sounds.
In sports, the best defense is a strong offense, and likewise in the home. In an armed conflict, guerilla warfare is waging a strong offense using anything but the standard weapons and classic techniques, and likewise in the home.

The Guerilla parent does not play fair. By nature, the field is not level in the home, nor should you level it. You have many advantages—your brains, your height, your life experiences, your family origin and its mix of good and bad models, your sense of your kids. Keep them all.

When a boy courts a girl, he sees that bringing her little things like something sweet smelling or handmade gets a pleased reaction greater than the actual value of his gift. Then what? Does he vow not to use this move again because that would not be playing fair? You go with that, but this is not cheating someone. Next case. This is courtship, you lay it on thick and it’s called love. Most of us would say use it like crazy. Cuando amor no es loco, no es amor—Love that is not crazy is not love.

Guerilla Tip: Do not play fair. Use what you’ve got and do not give away the home court advantage. Don’t be horrified to use your abilities and calibrate them for success. Be brave and daring.

You’ve got to love the kids with everything you’ve got:
Your brains—You must trust that you are smarter than your kids, make sensible decisions and lead with wisdom.
Your height—If you are taller than your kids, you can see things they cannot. When you drive, you can see farther down the road for issues that affect how fast to drive. An exception: Kids have remarkably sharp eyes for close-up work, so give them a boost by asking them to “use your sharp young eyes to see if you can read the ingredients here and tell me if this jar of food is healthy for us to eat.”
Your life experiences—You know what works, and what works for you. You have no need for any popular technique that doesn’t work for you. That reasoning does not make the technique bad, just useless.
Your family of origin and its mix of good and bad models—Some systems are all of a piece, some have limited material worth copying, some are more holes than fabric. But the systems you saw as a kid you know like the back of your hand. Permission is now granted to never again repeat the models out of nostalgia. Repeat the parts that you respect. Reshape the rest.
Your sense of your kids—You know their potential better than they do, or at least you have your impressions to go by. Play to their strengths mostly, and challenge them in manageable ways for the other parts.
See if you can agree with the constructive new idea that follows. If not, see if maybe can just hear out its painless message and then accept it with grace. Be warned that you are have already entered inside a parlor trick being played out, and a parlor trick has intrinsic entertainment value.

The new idea is that there is no such thing as constructive criticism. It doesn’t exist in the real world…since it’s imaginary. Even wishing that it works won’t help it work. Call constructive criticism what it is by dropping the thin facade called ‘constructive’ and seeing what you have left: criticism. This constructive criticism dreams of transmitting its criticizing message painlessly and thus being heard, then accepted with grace. Ha.

Remember, you were not criticized, but you were warned. However, if you took this approach to be critical of the conventional approach—especially if it’s your approach—did it feel graceful or confrontational? Did you learn your lesson or feel at all defensive? Is criticizing effective?

Criticism is good for venting, for sure, but what results do you want from the kids, a sounding board for your hissy fit? Or a new understanding of what you will and will not accept from them?

Guerilla Tip: Don’t use criticism when you set rules or explain them. The cure for its sting has not yet been found. Tell your kids what you want them to do and don’t criticize their thinking or their ways.

Not to criticize, of course, but here are some thoughts to ponder while you oversee your kid romping in the playground. These are common takes on criticism, along with assorted corresponding opinions:
Criticism is good for you—No.
Criticism makes you grow—No.
You cannot teach without criticism, but package it to build the kid up—No.
Criticism has an undeservedly good reputation. Despite conventional wisdom—oh, forget that—criticism hurts in so many ways. Period. If you have an opinion about what you like and do not like, express that opinion without criticizing someone else’s actions or opinions. If you have some criticism to offer here and insist it really helps, you can go ahead and start, but kindly give me a head start so I can absorb it the way it works best for me, from afar.

Criticism is not the same as a critique of the arts, because it is heard as only one thing, disapproval.

No criticism is constructive. It is so unwelcome, even scientists hate it. Mathematician David Berlinski says they like to pretend otherwise, welcome challenges to their ideas and seek only pure truth. Actually, like all of us, they love their own ideas, which is where they pour so much time and passion. So they get defensive when challenged, because they hate it. And that is pure truth.

Guerilla Tip: Criticism is not good for you. It does not help kids grow. You can easily teach without criticism, even if you are used to packaging it to build the kid up. When you disagree with your kid, explore your kid’s reasoning like you’re on an adventure—cause you are. In discovering your kid’s thinking, you can always ask if the results of that thinking might really be good or maybe unlikely. Be logical in showing how you can picture that Plan A might well produce lousy Results B. But don’t be so smug that you get lost in sanctimonia. By allowing yourself the luxury that life has few guarantees, you likewise encourage kids to keep an open mind. They’ll need it and so will you.

Guerilla Tip: Toughness and roughness are not by definition brave. If you can’t spread some cheer, pioneer by sealing your lips or at least using understatement.
Hugo Rifkind, editorial writer for the Times of London, writes he is skeptical of people who say they speak their mind, “As though that was a good thing to begin with.” He suggests that they think first: “Pick out some edited highlights, and speak those. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a mind at all? You might as well just have your mouth wired up directly to somewhere else entirely.” (Wall Street Journal, Opinion, August 3, 2010.)

Guerilla Tip: Mind your words rather than let them stream out indiscriminately, somewhere else entirely.

Limit House Rules to a Drop-Dead Few

2011-01-25T18:05:00.064-05:00

“Go spoil your appetite.”

· If eating a sweet before dinner really does ruin your appetite, it would be all the rage. Aren’t dieters looking for ways to ruin their appetite, limit calories and watch their weight? Or maybe the wisdom is worthless. It seemed that way, so that was not a house rule of mine. Everyone ended up happier with moderation.

Guerilla Tip: “We’re about to eat, but if you can’t resist, sneak a little dessert. Okay?”

With moderation, there was no sugar fest. Call it subversive, but it worked and there was peace. For more on eating dessert without earning it, there is a piece on Let Them Eat Cake.

· Cleaning house of useless rules means what’s left is for real: Preschoolers never cross the street alone, rudeness is never okay, we all apologize for our mistakes, adults always have to set an example.

Guerilla Tip: Target all rules around two teaching goals—Think for yourself and show respect.

We can require basic respect, all the while trying to actually earn it and hoping for love in the process.

· Since you cannot win every time, make sure the fights you fight are worth it.

Guerilla Tip: Choose your battles and pick your shots.

Which ones are they? Those forming your key values and also winnable. You have to be very selective in choosing. If something is critical for you, you have found a better candidate for a rule. If another area matters less to you and you have usually lost in that area, that is a poorer candidate.

Another useless rule: “Don’t let her nap now, or she’ll be up all night. We need her to sleep when we are at the wedding!” Sounds good, to alter a kid’s schedule now to fit into some timing we need later, but it does not work.

Guerilla Tip: If kids are healthy and sleep when tired, be happy for it.

· Baby boomers like me came of age at a time when Western society was discovering a new right to question authority: Could our leaders lead, let alone dictate our lives? Consequently, we had the hardest time believing in our own leadership or the right to claim authority, when we started leading. Many of us became mothers and fathers who did not trust or own our leadership. It was the fear of success: Leading with authority would make us hated simply because we had hated leaders.

Guerilla Tip: Who should lead a family if not adults—preschoolers, teens? Being authoritative does not make you authoritarian or humorless.

Daniel used to say, “You’re not my boss!” “No,” was my response, “I’m your father. I love you and this is my decision.”

Letting it all hang out was a flower child motto, but Baby Boomer, control yourself. Hanging out is for relaxing, not for leading the way. When you lead a team, you have to show by example that team members pull together for the good of the team, while each subdues a little bit of the individual self and selfish aims. You can now stop letting it all hang out.

Presidential speechwriter and editor Peggy Noonan beautifully addresses stepping up to leadership (Wall Street Journal, Opinion, Jan. 8, 2011):

“It’s a great mistake when you are in a leadership position to want to be like everyone else. Because that, actually, is not your job. Your job is to be better, and to set standards that those below you have to reach to meet. And you have to do this even when it’s hard, even when you know you yourself don’t quite meet the standards you represent.

“A captain has to be a captain.

“…A lot of our leaders—the only exceptions I can think of at the moment are nuns in orders that wear habits—have become confused about something, and it has to do with being an adult, with being truly mature and sober. When no one want to be the stuffy old person, when no one wants to the ‘the establishment,’ when no one accepts the role of authority figure, everything gets damaged, lowered. The young aren’t taught what they need to know. And they know they’re not being taught, and on some level they resent it.”

· Early in the twentieth century, King Edward VIII said, “The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.” This thing that once impressed a king is still impressive, and not in a good way.

Guerilla Tip: Don’t be cruel or naïve. Don’t be cold when you’re angry. But above all, please don’t be ineffective, as most other sins are pardonable.

Anything effective is probably very good. In every case that you find what works, it’s only one thing you need to get down, not a thousand.

Granted that blind obedience to parent and teacher finally fell entirely out of fashion in America as the 1960’s took hold, but balanced reason could be seeing a comeback. Just as respecting natural resources and being frugal at home and work have returned to common sense, respect for house rules can once again be the norm. Fashionable or not, the question is what do you want for your family sphere and for your own life?

Years ago, adults actually did not want to hear from kids, not their cheerful voices nor their polite opinions, but shutting them out is the opposite of what this book advocates.

Guerilla Tip: Forget that children should be seen and not heard. Kids can be heard, and parents get the final word.

· As a kid, were you ever told just to be yourself? Did you know what that meant? Did you even know who you were, let alone who you were supposed to become? Teens are still finding and forming the person they will become; they are not there yet. Guerilla Tip: Help your kids find out who they are meant to be. Help them find themselves by trying out new roles, new activities, new friends.

They may know what they want to have; they may have learned what they should be doing; but what do they really need to do for themselves and for their long-term benefit? This is no overnight discovery and will need your gentle guidance.

Betty G., late of Highland Park, NJ, had been a viola player in the Broadway pit for 45 years. As her co-worker, I once asked how parents know which instrument suits a kid. Betty said kids’ ears will find the sound most pleasing to them and then gravitate towards that instrument.

Guerilla Tip: Help your kids find their instrument of joy—in music, in the garden spade and otherwise in their life’s work.

When the rich creativity of the untapped mind is freed to discover its nature, it naturally puts the free flow of an unmined resource on tap and creates rich rewards.

· An Example of Best Practices
Craig H. of Highland Park, NJ has a best practice for handling big shopping malls lots: He parks in the lane directly in line with the main entrance, no matter how far out. The way he sees things, a closer space in a side lane would clutter his mind by forcing him to remember the lane, whereas he never has to remember where he parked. He simply walks straight until he reaches his car.

Guerilla Tip: Modern life dispenses clutter all day long. Simplify daily.

My best practice, when writing out a check, is to post the details in my check register before writing and mailing the check. It would be too easy for me otherwise to mail the check and then forget to post it in my register.

· Parents at our dinner table would be blown away when …

1. Their kid acted up.

2. I said it was against house rules.

3. The kid listened.

It surprised the parents to see their unruly kid accept discipline just because an adult said so like he meant it. Guerilla Tip: When other parents tell you to say what you mean and mean what you say, this is what they mean. As a parent, say it like you mean it.

Sure, the rule was new, made up along the way, but I was just as serious about them. If they are not setting down rules in their own homes, how did those parents expect the rule of law to take hold?

Invoking the rule of table manners was as simple as politely spelling out the rule, and so the kid accepted it. No asking a kid’s permission to be in charge of my own home. My actual words were, “Excuse me, the food comes from God.” If that language would not be real for you, say that food comes from the earth or from nature, which deserves our respect. “In this house, if we don’t like a dish, we don’t eat it and we keep quiet. No saying yuck, no saying politely it’s not good and no throwing food (exaggerated for laughs, because that much a six-year old knew, in theory).

Guerilla Tip: Whatever age you live in, how will peace guide the planet, by wishing it or working on it? Set boundaries clearly and seriously.

You may do this but not that = I love you enough to guide you.

· If the heavens are not helpful, and the earth, too crunchy, make up your own reason not to waste. What if you don’t care? Not about wasting food as a resource, nor the money it costs, nor the effort it takes to grow and prepare it? Then find some tiny corner of your heart where you can honestly teach that wasting is a bad habit.

Guerilla Tip: Teach kids good habits.

Look at tobacco. It does not matter to me if you smoke or not, and one cigarette won’t kill you. Smoking is, though, a good example of a bad habit seen worldwide as an adult choice frowned upon for kids. Grant me that? So even if you do not care whether your kids begin smoking at 13, the usual age for starting, surely you don’t want to set the habit for younger kids. Same for wasting food. For adults, finishing your plate has its merits and its calories, but do not leave it up to kids to decide what is wasteful and what is wise.

Guerilla Tip: Teach what you believe in when kids are very young—eating and smoking.

· Eliminate every meaningless rule.

Guerilla Tip: Any rule you make that the kids don’t follow weakens your authority, and the rule deserves to die.

Not only will you be able to live without the rule—get ready, ‘cause here it comes—you already do. Just as we help kids mature over time, kids help us mature as parents, discussed later under Don't Drive it Underground—Ask.

Guerilla Tip: We add to our stature immeasurably when we let kids see we are big enough to improve on our own style.

The Jewish sages put it humbly in Sayings of our Sages, “Who is wisest? Whoever learns from everyone.”

Guerilla Tip: Wisdom is gathered from all sources, big and small.

For a fresh start, look at some of your house rules. Put aside for now those solid rules that are working. What about a rule that is frequently broken? If you drop that rule, your kids will love you for it. Why is it even a rule?

A broken rule started for some reason, albeit a weak and forgotten one. You originally thought it was…

· Traditional

· Seemingly right

· A good idea

· A community norm many others follow

· A rule your parents used

A broken rule is broken because it is completely hollow…You don’t stand behind the rule.
Proof: You do not care enough to put teeth in it.

A broken rule is hollow because it was a mistake to start with…You do not care about the rule.
Proof: The kids break it often because you allow them to break it, and they don’t like it, to boot.

Here is the reason the rule is over … You’re okay without it, certainly no worse. Now drop the rule.
Proof: You picked an unwanted, unneeded and unnecessary rule, and you will do better next time.

Alternatively, if you can find a flaw in the above reasoning, you may truly want to find a way to make the rule stand. You have your work cut out for you, but you can do it.

Guerilla Tip: To get behind a rule like you mean it, tell the kids what will happen when they violate it and, above all, deliver on your promise without fail.

· Traditionally, the Zuni tribe in the American Southwest had a unique child-rearing practice for babies. Until the age of two, kids were free to do whatever they wanted within reason. Parents felt there was plenty of time for discipline later, and it apparently all fell into place.

Guerilla Tip: If lessons are too early to be heard or absorbed, it is not worth the effort to teach them.

Jews refer to a fruitless conversation as, “Talk to him, talk to the wall!” The Zunis may have been onto something there.

· Co-worker Iris R. of Plainsboro, NJ once complained to a doctor that her teenage son was eating only tuna fish with potato chips and would touch nothing else. My interest was to learn what tricks worked with teens, as my kids would eventually reach that state. Iris’s doctor thought she was lucky—some patients came in complaining of kids with a one-food diet. “It’ll pass,” he said, “and two foods are better than one.”

Guerilla Tip: Repeat what the doctor says—”Could be worse.”

· Consider another mother: “My daughter is 10 and will eat only white rice, which has absolutely no nutritional value. Your household is vegetarian. How did you get brown rice into your kids?” First of all, the continent known as Asia lives on white rice, it is blessedly easy to digest and there is fiber in other foods. On the other hand, if you said your daughter will only eat fried pork rinds, stop stocking it in your cupboard and wondering why your kid eats it. The law calls that activity entrapment—setting up bad stuff and blaming the kid. Guerilla Tip: Nurture and nourish by bending and accommodating, which is kind and models flexibility, but not for things you’ll regret doing. As for brown rice, I cooked it, and kids either ate that or they ate other things. Then I would cook more...of the other things. Sabbath main dishes alternated between two dishes they would eat: either cheese lasagna or sour cream onion quiche. Salad became Romaine lettuce alone, home dressing on the side. When it came to dessert, they were more flexible.

Another food issue: “My brother is having a problem with my two-year-old niece at meal times. She won’t blah, blah, blah when she should, and the family’s upset.” I repeatedly asked my friend what part of the concern was the problem part. She thought I wasn’t getting it and she was right. Why waste energy trying to find a solution when there is no tangible problem, or fix something that is not actually broken? It is much easier to correct something that needs a lot of correcting than something that barely needs it.

Guerilla Tip: Lighten up. Not every issue is a pathology.

· Just yesterday in a New York City subway car, a woman created a scene of self-righteous indignation. Nothing new about New Yorkers making a scene in the subway, and self-righteous must be a requirement for all indignation.

She began by calling a man a pervert for using his cell phone to secretly video a girl about 10, sitting with her family and chewing gum. It is anyone’s guess why he wanted the video—some reasons creepy, some harmless and some unknown. The man did not answer her accusations, but got off the train at the next stop.

Next, the woman cycled endlessly through her story of how she was protecting the girl. With the woman as the only one aware of the man’s tricky invasion of privacy, the girl and her family were not harmed in any way before they were made aware of his odd behavior. However, after repeating her story over and over, the woman brought the girl to tears, and then assured the girl’s parents they could comfort the girl by telling her everything is all right.

Guerilla Tip: Before you label the behavior of a stranger or of your own kids as pathology, make sure the label is deserved. Check your facts, be slow to judge and really listen. Once you have made a scene, you do not get to say forget it.

· In Stephen Covey’s book First Things First, he retells the story of the glass jar. A lecturer once filled rocks into a glass jar to show how we fill our lives. “Is your life full?” The students all nodded. He then added gravel to fill the spaces, “Is your life full?” They said yes, now definitely. He filled the jar with sand and asked, “Is your life full now?” They said they really thought so, but wondered. Pouring water to the top, he asked, “Is your life full?” The whole room agreed the jar was finally full.

The lecturer challenged the room for the lesson of the jar. “We can always fit more into our lives,” came one response, “There is always room to do a little more.” “There is always room for a little more,” with the lecturer adding one caveat, “if we start with the big things. Others can be fit around them, but the big things have to go in first to make sure we get them in.”

Treat the big things with respect. You know what the big things are. Keep your priorities straight, and you can pack your car for a trip the same way. For the big rules to have a place, you cannot wait until the end to find them a place. They have to be placed in first, and that would be you doing the placing. Use the priorities that you say you set for the big things. That is what they deserve, and you do, too. Your home will fall into place from the rule of organizing your rules.

Guerilla Tip: Fit your big rules in first. Fit other rules and minor preferences around them as room allows. Forget about fitting the big things in later.

Ask Who Wrote the Book of Parenting

2011-01-25T17:21:00.005-05:00

"When you don’t get what you want, what you get is called experience."

· A big concern of mine in deciding to codify my parenting tricks—parenting system, that is—was why would a stranger trust me to try any of my diabolical methods? “Raising kids is serious. Who is this clown?” Especially since some techniques are so subversive, why would a reader try them, because I say so?

For credentials, growing up with four siblings in an intact family and becoming a divorced dad would not be enough. Isn’t an expert supposed to have a professional degree? Despite analytical thinking, I am no therapist or parentologist. Then who am I to write the book on parenting, claiming guerilla cred no less?

The simplest answer is that a smart idea speaks for itself like a new invention. Spot a glass measuring cup for the first time, and you see a single easy-to-read tool to measure different amounts of liquid. When the invention is a clear improvement, you don’t ask about the inventor, you buy an extra for mom and dad.

Another answer is experience. I have a palette of special experience to draw on that you may not wish for yourself. Tuition was paid in full. If you are the sort that likes the background details, they are to be found in Discover the Birth of Guerilla Parenting.

Guerilla Tip: You know what experience is, don’t you? When you don’t get what you want, what you do get they call experience.

My experience is a trial-by-fire childhood, raising three kids born within two years and a long but liberating divorce. My career as a technical writer was built on the skill of analyzing and explaining things well.

· Deciding for Yourself

This system is made up of event-based rules that build to form an experienced-based system. A completely fresh system that holds together. The author has thought policies through to come up with an original brew.

The system will give you a fierce approach to the central issues you face as a parent—never attacking your kids, mind you, but the issues. You will get to decide for yourself whether to draw the same conclusions from the same learning experiences. So while every event was experienced exactly as described, that is no more than an opinion—you can take it or leave it and draw your own conclusions.

Since every opinion is a viewpoint and not a fact by itself, you can always take it or leave it. By contrast, every scientific study also draws a conclusion from the study, but then presents its conclusion as scientific fact. Is a solid conclusion from a solid study a fact or an opinion? It is actually an opinion, so you can take it or leave it. Every scientific study produces an opinion, no more, no less.

And there again, even the previous sentence is an opinion—so you can take it or leave it. You get to decide for yourself.

Guerilla Tip: A family system is little more than one opinion built on another—so you can take it or leave it. You get to decide for yourself when you see if it works for you. Discard it if you can do better.

· With this book, you will not have to reinvent the wheel. After you put in some early, heavy pedaling, you can do a fair amount of coasting, improvising, even wheelies, if you wish.

First you can simulate these fresh-to-you but battle-tested techniques directly. If it’s a war out there, and you might as well win it as lose it. The war is you or your sanity, though, not you or your kids. Before you know it, you will be inventing your own techniques based on what works in your setting and what does not. Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, an inventive thinker on the challenges of the mind, called it borrowing the glasses of the therapist until clients are ready to use their own.

Guerilla Tip: Channel the guerilla persona whenever you need it, then find the bravery inside you. Your job is to empower your kids. My job is to empower you. The Guerilla parent is shrewd and nurturing, fun but in charge. And everything gets explained.

Guerilla Tip: The more you empower your kids, the easier your job. You learn to trust yourself trusting them, and all that trust…it is a beautiful thing.