Book Review- Kids and Power Struggles

Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles Winning for a Lifetime by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

Hope you're not expecting something literary. Because you're not going to get it.

I didn't finish the book. Too much on my plate and no time to read. I got about half way through it. I think the problem isn't with the book, it's with me. I'm just not in the mood for educational reading. If I have time to read I want to escape into a story right now. So I'm going to put it down. In the future I'll return and finish it. It wasn't a difficult read, overly wordy or condescending to parents or kids.

What I read had some very interesting ideas for dealing with the melt downs that occur with children. Some of the stuff I read was common sense, like taking a hungry kid into a grocery store is asking for trouble. Well yeah, me going into a grocery store hungry is asking for trouble.

But it did go on to say that when children melt down there is a reason behind it. That meltdowns and the sister to meltdowns, the temper tantrum, are not done by children to make us miserable or because we suck as parents. And to solve the problem of ongoing meltdowns you need to identify the triggers. It gave several examples to help you get to the bottom of the problem.

The last chapter I read talked about older kids and how they start to rebel. It gave an interesting example of how a woman wanted to ride her son's new bike. He got very upset and started yelling at her that he didn't want her riding his bike, that it was his, blah, blah, blah. I think we can all get the picture of the selfish teenager in our head. When the mother spoke to her son about why he didn't want her riding the bike instead of just writing him off as self absorbed teenager she found that he didn't mind her riding the bike but didn't want kids at school seeing her riding his bike. So he's not a selfish brat he just didn't want to get teased by the kids at school. I'm sure when I get back to the book it will go into further detail about this very trying time in the parent/child relationship.

There is a section of the book that talks about the author's workshops with parents who are having struggles with their children. The parents speak about what issues they were having and how some of them got to the bottom of it and how others were still trying to make the connection.

I definitely see the value in this book. If you have on and off again problems along these lines maybe a trip to the library would be in order for this one. If you have kids that seem to be one long line of meltdowns and power struggles this book would definitely be worth the purchase price.