Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime

Noted family educator Mary Sheedy Kurcinka struck a national chord with her bestselling Raising Your Spirited Child. Now she hits upon another crucial parenting topic: coping with the everyday challenges of disciplining your child, while understanding the issues behind his or her behavior. In Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles, she offers unique approaches to solving the daily, and often draining, power struggles between you and your child. Kurcinka views these conflicts as rich opportunities to teach your child essential life skills, like how to deal with strong emotions and problem solve. With her successful strategies, you'll be able to identify the trigger situations that set off these struggles and get to the root of the emotions and needs of you and your child.

My favorite sections are the tips about temperaments (especially teaching children and parents how to say or do things differently to avoid upsetting others) and helping children change their "bulldozing statements" (often button-pushing ones for parents, such as "You're not my boss!" or "Shut up!") into statements that persuade others to listen ("I'd like a choice" or "I didn't like what you said").

Have you read a lot of books and wonder if you'll really learn something new in this one? Absolutely. With two spirited children of my own, I've enjoyed the following (plus many others), but now recommend "Kids, Parents, & Power Struggles" instead: Parenting with Love & Logic; Raising your Spirited Child (an excellent supplement); How to Behave so Your Children Will Too; Magic 1-2-3; Setting Limits; How to talk so kids will listen... (and others in their series- great supplements, though); Children are from Heaven; Children the Challenge; plus others from Dr. Sears, Leach, & Brazelton.


Absolutely terrific...   February 2, 2000
W. Sharp (Florida)
194 out of 197 found this review helpful

Reading parenting books is practically a secret addiction of mine -- I read about one a month, sometimes more, and have read dozens since my son was born. Barbara Coloroso's Kids Are Worth It!(a great book) has held first place on my favorites list for the last three years, but Mary Kurcinka just knocked her off with Kids, Parents and Power Struggles. This is the best parenting book I've ever read and I highly, highly recommend it. I think the title was a little misleading -- the book wasn't as much about power struggles as it was about learning how to help your kids handle their emotions appropriately. It's also heavily oriented (not surprisingly, from the author of Raising Your Spirited Child) toward understanding your individual child -- his or her needs, temperament,and personality and how those factors affect behavior. The content is great. And the delivery is also wonderful. Kurcinka's writing style is clear, informative, thoughtful -- and fun!

***
I first reviewed this book nine years ago. I said at the time that I was addicted to parenting books. After this book, my addiction ended. I think it was because I felt like I had the tools I needed. I haven't read a parenting book in years.

So my son is a teenager now. He's not an adult, so I can't really say that I'm done raising him--who knows what the next few years might bring? But as I look around me at the other teenagers we know and at their relationships with their parents and their behaviors, and then look at my son, I am beyond grateful for Ms. Kurcinka and what she taught me about being a parent.

My teenager is--a teenager. He has his moments when the hormones take control and he's rude or hostile. But then he apologizes. He understands his emotions, he knows when he's behaved badly, he knows how to communicate about his feelings, how to express his limits politely and acknowledge when he was wrong. He needs reminders to do his chores, but then he does them without complaint, without even the eye-rolling that every other teenager seems to have mastered. He gets loud and boisterous, because hey, he's a teenage boy, and they do that--but I can literally just widen my eyes at him and he knows that I want him to take it down a notch. He is amazing with his younger cousins, responsible and careful and tolerant and attentive, and really, the best babysitter that anyone could want--and how many people can say that about their teenage boys? I said to his grandmother one day recently, I wonder what he'll be like as an adult? and she said one word, AWESOME. I don't think that's 100% this book--Kids Are Worth It! was great, too, and certainly it took a lot of work on my part to become the parent that KPPS suggests it's worth being...but having made the journey, I am grateful every day that I learned what I did from this book. And if you're looking for help, give it a try.


A Prescription for Peace: Getting a Handle on Emotions   February 24, 2001
Mark Twain (zoon)
50 out of 50 found this review helpful

Based on Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence, and the author's own research in her practice, this book's basic premise is that conflicts in families can be resolved by understanding, recongnizing, and dealing with emotions effectively. Since these are skills wanting in many of us, the author suggests we teach our children and ourselves at the same time. Good advice.

Carefully, patiently, she leads us through the basics: empathy, self calming, recongnizing feelings, listening, recognizing different temperaments and personality styles. Then she gives us the tools for coaching our children to become more effective in handling their feelings: to recognize them, name them, express them and seek a satisfactory resolution without being destructive to others.

Nothing here is so revolutionary, but the approach of thinking about your child's difficult behavior as a cry for help in dealing with underlying emotions is incredibly helpful. Once you have tuned into this idea, it short-circuits your tendency to react to such behavior with knee-jerk, authoritarian stuff you are reading these books to avoid. You end up working with your child, not against him, and isn't that the point?

Different parenting books work for different people. This might be the one for you. One caveat: the paper on this not inexpensive hardcover edition is cheap, cheap, and the type small and gray. You'd expect more from HarperCollins.


An Amazing parenting book!   April 10, 2000
47 out of 47 found this review helpful

I learned more in the first two chapters than my six years (so far) of experience parenting. It is that incredibly eye-opening and insightful. I read real life situations and solutions. I learned how to better communicate with my child in a matter of days and the stress level around my home has drastically been reduced. I can even appreciate my children in a new light. Where was this book before? I wish they'd hand this out at the hospital as you leave with your baby because it's the best advice I've ever read. I know how to diffuse a situation, stay in charge and no one feels like the "loser".


THE attachment parenting book for the post-infancy years   September 4, 2001
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

I am trained as a family therapist, am a long-time meditator and am raising both my girls in the attachment parenting style. This book added tremendously to my parenting abilities. Kurcinka answers my two most difficult questions: how do I stay connected to my child while discipling her? and how do I discipline without crushing my child's spirit and will? Her answers are straight-forward, detailed, and she adds loads of real life examples. Most basically she advocates honoring your child's (and your own) underlying emotional needs while remaining absolutely consisent with respect to standards. She gives us concrete tools to be both firm and kind, to raise assertive, respectful kids, and to build a strong relationship with them to rely on when we can no longer just put them in their room. This book has overhauled my relationship with my 3 year old within a week, and I will refer to it until my girls are past their teenage years. A must-read!