Real Love in Parenting: Book Review

I recently finished the book Real Love in Parenting, by Greg Baer, M.D. It came highly recommended from several of my aunts, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The following is a summary of the ten chapters of the book.

The First Principle of Parenting: More than anything else, my child needs to feel loved

Just like plants die when they are not watered, children act badly when they are not loved. What children need is real love—not imitation love. Analogy—if you have a ten minute conversation with a person and for nine minutes they are loving and kind, but for the last minute they yell and scream at you, what will you remember? The one minute. Even if we are loving towards our children 90% of the time, sadly, they will remember the one 10%. Needs to be closer to 99.9%! If you are angry or not loving towards you child it is because you do not feel enough real love yourself.

Analogy—imagine that you are hungry and only have $2.00 left to buy food. I come in and steal your $2.00. How do you feel? You are probably very angry. But what if you have 1,000,000,000 dollars and I come in and take two. How do you feel? Not mad at all. So it isn’t me stealing $2.00 that makes you angry, it is that you only have $2.00. Similarly, when our children are yelling and arguing, that isn’t what makes us angry, it is that we do not have enough love, patience or other resources to deal with the problem.

The Second Principle of Parenting: When my child behaves badly, he or she does not feel loved

There are many ways that we show imitation love to our children. Any time it is about me as the parent it is probably imitation love. For example, I am often guilty of this with doing activities with the kids. A lot of the activities are really things I want to do, as opposed to things I do unconditionally for them. When our children are angry, hit, cling, whine, etc. it is a sign that they don’t feel loved.

Analogy: you are at a pool giving a speech. Somebody from the pool splashes you. Once. Twice. A third time. You are getting angry. You turn to yell at the person and see that it is a person who is drowning. Does your perspective change? Of course…when your kids are exhibiting bad behaviors it’s like they are drowning and trying to let you know.

The Third Principle of Parenting: When I’m angry, I’m wrong.

When you are angry you feel bad and your child feels bad. What does it teach children if we yell at them? We typically get angry because we are empty, we’re afraid of losing control, we’re worried about how their behavior inconveniences us, or makes us look bad. These are all essentially selfish behaviors.

Analogy: If behavior “causes” you to become angry, but another person is not angered by the behavior, this is proof that the behavior does not cause anger.

Analogy: Suppose your child breaks your camera, which “makes” you angry. Then your mother gives you one million dollars. Would that make you less angry? Yes, you say. And then we could say, “if the million dollars would make your anger go away, then the cause of your anger is not the broken camera, but your lack of one million dollars.”

Children do need to be taught manners, and to respect and honor their parents. What we need to do is make sure we are teaching them for their benefit and not to fulfill some need that we as parents have.

Five steps to eliminate anger: 1. Be quiet. 2. Be wrong—acknowledge that simply because you are angry, you are in the wrong. 3. Feel loved (remember the love that the Savior and others have for you). 4. Get loved (reach out to adults who can express real love to you). 5. Love and serve others.

The Fourth Principle of Parenting: I can’t give what I don’t have—I must find real love for myself

You have to have real love for yourself. Four keys to find unconditional love are 1. feel the desire to change. Tell the truth about yourself. Exercise faith. Give up your getting and protecting behaviors. Tell the truth about yourself means to state that at times you are selfish, or focused more on you than your kids. As you acknowledge the truth you create opportunities for people to see you as you really are, accept you and love you. You don’t go to your kids seeking this love but to “wise men and women” who have real love to give you. Telling the truth means many things…For example, “how many times do I have to tell you…” means “I can’t believe you’re so stupid, but you must be, or I wouldn’t have to keep telling you the same things over and over. If I were more loving I would teach you this lesson as many times as it takes, but my life is so empty and unhappy that if everything around me doesn’t go smoothly, I get upset and angry” (106). “Be quiet” means, “I’m so selfish, intolerant and controlling that I can’t live with the noises that all children make at your age.” “Can’t you hold still?” maeans “stop moving around and acting your age. Behave like and adult” (107).

The Fifth Principle of Parenting: My child needs to be loved and taught.

Sometimes what we should do is teach our children to tell the truth about themselves and their motives by 1. telling the truth about ourselves, 2. loving them when they tell the truth about themselves and 3. telling them the truth about themselves. So when kids are arguing you could say something like, “What we all really want most is to be happy, isn’t it? Everythnig we do is worthless if we’re not happy…there’s a lot of quarreling and irritation, which means people aren’t happy. Lately’ I’ve been doing some studying…and I’ve been learning that most of the unhappiness in our family is my fault. As a mother I’ve been making some huge mistakes…think about all the times I’ve been irritated with you when you didn’t do what I wanted….did you like that? You had it when I’m angry at you, because when I’m angry, I’m thinking of myself, not you” (130). By telling the truths about ourselves it helps our children to see that when we got angry at them it was not a manifestation of lack of love towards them, but that we are acknowledging that it was our own problem. You don’t tell children about your mistakes to get love from them, but rather to help them see the past differently, to give them an example of being truthful and to help them feel your love for them.

It’s important to love children even when they make mistakes. “Children judge whether we really love them according to how we treat them when they’re behaving badly. The absence of disappointment and anger when they’re ‘bad’ is the only kind of love that counts” (138).

Express love to your children by looking at them and giving them your full attention.

Some rules that can be helpful in arguments: 1. One speaker at a time. 2. Whoever speaks first is the speaker. 3. the speaker can only talk about their own feelings, not what others did or did not do.

When you need to correct a child, show genuine love—you have to really tell them the feeling, and tell them the truth. For example to a little boy who ate the last cookie help him see that he feels selfish and not as happy as in times past when he has shared.

The Sixth Principle of Parenting: After my child has been loved and taught, he or she needs to be loved and taught again

When children get angry, see accept and love your children. Teach them about real love and discuss the effects of anger on happiness. Teach them alternative ways to behave and at times impose consequences.

With respect to “time out” it should only be to accomplish a specific purpose to allow them to cool off. It isn’t a punishment but an opportunity to learn something, and a loving invitation is giving to come back as soon as they can kindly be a part of the family.

Keys to preventing anger, clinging, etc. love our children unconditionally, teach them to responsible and loving, establish clear rules, consistently apply consequences, learn how to say no, be grateful when your children are loving.

When praising children, frame it in loving and teaching. You don’t want to say that you are good person, but rather when you did such and such a thing you felt good. E.g. What did you do differently to have things work out so well? What did you learn from this?

The Seventh Principle of Parenting: The law of Choice.

“The most important principle in relationships is the Law of Choice: We all have the right to choose what we say and do” (262). If you feel disappointed and/or angry with your kids it’s probably a sign that you are limiting their choices for your own convenience, and not for their benefit. When possible let children make their own choices and suffer from (or be rewarded by) the natural consequences. For example, remember the purpose behind the requirement. Cleaning your room is important to teach responsibility and so that your kids can find stuff when it’s time to get dressed in the morning or go to bed at night.

The Eighth Principle of Parenting: Happiness comes from being loving.

When your children are fighting see and love them. Talk to them. How do you feel when you’re fighting? We’ve talked before about how when we are angry we aren’t feeling loved. What is happening that is having it be so that you don’t feel loved. Help your children see the truth, that when they are fighting over a toy they are being selfish.

You don’t have to be a doormat to be loving. You can teach your children about setting limits. He gives an example of a sibling always taking another sibling’s bike, and then helping that kid get a lock for his bike so his sibling wouldn’t always take it.

Two keys of success in relationships are 1. tell the truth about yourself. 2. Never expect any one person or group of people to love you. The only way you can make a difference is to change yourself, not blame or worry about what others are doing, because you cannot control those things.

The Ninth Principle of Parenting: Happiness Comes From Being Responsible

This chapter was similar to Merilee Boyack’s book on teaching children responsibility. Have meetings to discuss chores, give children choices where possible and set up assignments and deadlines with everybody’s agreement. Also suggests having one-on-one interviews with your children.

But What About…

This chapter covers various scenarios like “what if the kids are fighting” “what if they don’t go to bed…” etc. Most of the solutions were pretty common sense and in harmony with what I’ve read in other parenting books. One part that I thought was interesting was what he taught about “teaching children about sex” and how similar it was to what church leaders have taught.

“In the absence of real love…many of us use sex as a tool to create happiness and that never works out…The biggest reason young people experiment with sex is that they’re not happy. They’re looking for anything that will make them feel less unloved, powerless and alone” (392, 393).

As far as “what is the line of how far you should go” he gives an analogy of driving down a mountain and staying as far away from the edge as possible. Elder Boyd K. Packer taught something similar. He also states, “I suggest that children not be allowed to date before age sixteen” (398). Also, “Steady dating…encourages intimacy that children are not emotionally prepared for. Exclusive dating is therefore unwise until people are prepared for a committed, mutually loving relationship, like marriage” (398).