L29Ah @L29Ah@qoto.org

We hinder the development of our children by avoiding upsets at all cost. Kids that don't meet any real opposition never develop out of the "omnipotent" stage, which they should do when they're around 1.5 years old. As a result, they become anxious, unruly, and in many cases even get diagnosed with various disorders.

Joe Newman used to be one of those children, whom he calls "lions": strong-willed, forceful, powerful. This is contrasted with earlier generations, "lambs", who the author describes as weaker and more easily subdued by (parents') authority. After spending his youth bouncing around, Newman found himself working with such kids as a crisis intervention specialist. The book describes his method of "healing" them.

The core idea is simple enough: set boundaries and give consequences when they're crossed, every single time. The best consequence, in Newman's opinion, is a break: the child has to sit in a designated spot for a given amount of time, doing nothing. The point is to help them develop self-restraint and make them realize that other people have desires, interests and power of their own.

The idea is great IMHO, but the delivery is quite awful. What I summarized in the three paragraphs above, the author takes 70 pages to explain. The other 130 are spent re-hashing the same thing with a drop of new detail in each chapter. The whole thing is held together by a string of stories of how Newman applied his method, but they look like ads because the reader doesn't yet know enough to appreciate them as examples. The book progresses so slow it's infuriating and even a bit insulting.

If you have kids, or plan to have them, read a couple summaries of Newman's method—it seems great! Just don't waste your time on the original text.

#reading