Parenting Without Power Struggles: Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids While Staying Cool, Calm, and Connected [Paperback]

Susan Stiffelman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 13, 2012

Do you ever find yourself asking . . .

• How can you get your children to do their homework without meltdowns, threats or bribes?

• How can you have a drama-free morning where the kids actually get out the door in time for school?

• How can you better manage your kids’ screen time without making them want to hide what they’re doing from you?

Family therapist Susan Stiffelman is here to help. While most parenting programs are designed to coerce kids to change, Parenting Without Power Struggles does something innovative, showing you how to come alongside your children to awaken their natural instincts to cooperate, rather than at them with threats or bribes, which inevitably fuels their resistance. By staying calm and being the confident “Captain of the ship” your child needs, you will learn how to parent from a place of strong, durable connection, and you’ll be better able to help your kids navigate the challenging moments of growing up.

Drawing upon her successful practice and packed with real-life stories, Parenting Without Power Struggles is an extraordinary guidebook for transforming the day-to-day lives of busy parents—and the children they love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Susan Stiffelman is full of heart and soul but firmly grounded in commonsense understanding.”

—John Gray, New York Times bestselling author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus

"Susan Stiffelman shows parents how to create healthy, loving relationships with children while helping them develop the resilience and authenticity that will serve them throughout their lives. Parenting Without Power Struggles is one of the best parenting books I have ever read." (Arianna Huffington)

"Full of wise insights and effective strategies, this book should be required reading for all parents." —Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Giving the Love That Heals: A Guide for Parents

"If there was ever someone who could truly change the course of a family's life, it's Susan Stiffelman. Her effective methods are spelled out clearly in her wonderful book, making it easy to create a parent-child harmony at home." —Susan Avery, More magazine

“Conversational and practical… Stiffelman’s engaging work gives parents tools to navigate confidently in both calm and stormy family seas.” —Publishers Weekly

“Susan Stiffelman, who has double standing to give parenting advice, as a professional therapist and the mother of an exceptional son, has hit the nail on the head twice over…her book is filled with practical, real-world ways to minimize the fights and maximize the love.” (Kurt Andersen novelist and host of public radio's Studio 360)

Book Description

Imagine life without drama, meltdowns, and power struggles
From celebrity parents to everyday moms and pops, single parents to grandparents, most of us know what to do when our kids behave. But let's face it: family life can get downright crazy, and it's at those moments that we most need to keep our cool.
Family therapist Susan Stiffelman has shown thousands of parents how to be the cool, confident "Captain of the ship" in their children's lives. Based on her successful practice and packed with real-life stories, Susan shares proven strategies and crystal clear insights to motivate kids to cooperate and connect. Parenting without Power Struggles is an extraordinary guidebook for transforming your day-to-day parenting life.
You'll discover how to:
• Transform frustration and aggression into adaptation and cooperation
• Keep your cool when your kids push your buttons, talk back or refuse to "play nice"
• Nourish deep attachment with young and older kids
• Help your ADD'ish child survive and thrive, even if you’re ADD'ish yourself
• Inoculate your kids from negative thinking and peer pressure that lead to anger, anxiety, depression, or behavior issues
• Help children manage the emotional challenges of divorce

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books; Original edition (March 13, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451667663
• ISBN-13: 978-1451667660
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan Stiffelman is a unique blend of licensed therapist, credentialed teacher, beloved auntie and down to earth mom. Her book, Parenting Without Power Struggles is based on her work with thousands of parents and children, from celebrities to everyday moms and pops.

In her book, Susan offers mainstream, rubber meets the road advice that has been thoroughly tested on kids of all ages and demographics. At the same time, her approach to raising kids falls into step with the understanding of people like Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson who recognize that parenting is in its own way a spiritual journey.

She's an adventurer (she took her 15 year old son on a two and a half month trip to Uganda, Tanzania, Australia and New Zealand), a visionary (homeschooled him in his early years when it was considered rather "iffy") and is an outside-the-box thinker (taught herself Hindi as a teenager by calling people named "Singh" out of the phone book!) Diagnosed with the ADHD label, she manages to accomplish more in a week than many do in a month, while maintaining a regular meditation practice and spending serious amounts of time playing.

Susan divides her time between Malibu, California with her son (when he's home from college), her dog Rosie, and a full and grateful heart.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a parenting book that rises above the others! October 8, 2009

By Anna Anawalt

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've just read Susan Stiffelman's book, Parenting Without Power Struggles, and the title alone is enough to make a weary parent sigh. Finally, a book that resonates with my parenting instincts and offers concrete, do-able suggestions for accomplishing what sometimes seems to be the impossible: maintaining authority or as the author so lovingly calls it, being the 'captain of the ship,' while encouraging and deepening a loving bond between parent and child. How often have you walked away after yelling at your child out of sheer frustration and felt crummy, thinking 'this isn't right.' She addresses so many of our common areas of power struggle, like HOMEWORK. She also encourages us to 'celebrate our children' but not in a false manner that leaves them dependent and ill-equipped for the world. For busy parents, aren't we all, the book is laid out in short, easily readable chapters. A great place to start that will surely pique your interest are the Check Lists in the very back of the book, Checklist #1 and Checklist #2. Check it out!!!
Anna Anawalt, Los Angeles, Caliornia

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, easy to implement & grounded -somewhere between old and new school parenting, just where I needed it to be August 31, 2010

By michelle carlson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

In the 6 years we have been parents, my husband has read 2 books, The Expectant Father and Parenting without Power Struggles. I have read more, which I'm sure is not uncommon. This book has made us better parents and has also made us better partners in parenting. Susan's methods are a mix of practical, developmentally appropriate approaches that are easy to implement in day to day situations. When one of us is struggling, we talk about the book to each other, and that helps us regain perspective. In some ways, Susan has become an absentee referee in our own parenting disagreements. He's more old-school, I'm more touchy-feely. This book met us in the middle. In some chapters she affirmed some things we were already doing and in others she gave us new perspective into what was really going on between us and the kids. I want to say that this book has some good old fashioned advice, but it's not old fashioned in it's presentation or reasoning. In our case, this book helped us as much with the power struggles between us as parents, as between us and the kids.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book October 28, 2009

By Christine Steele

Format:Paperback

I have probably read 50 parenting books in my life and this is the best one ever. It is so well written, so right on topic. It is so easy to immediately transfer the info from this book into your day to day life with your kid. Loved it, loved it. Don't hesitate for a second to buy this one.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Susan's book is simply the best book on parenting that I have read.. October 6, 2009

By Dana J. Bove

Format:Paperback

Susan Stiffelman's book and wisdom has changed my life and has helped me engender a relationship with my daughter that I had always dreamed of. My advice would be to sit down with this very user friendly book and see parenting from the eyes of someone that knows the very heart of this territory. When I follow Susan's advice and come along side my daughter first, just listening during what she calls ACT I, I always find the perfect opening to then take on my role of captain of the ship--as she calls it--during the the following ACT II, if even necessary.

Susan's stories and examples are compelling, heartwarming, and just downright friendly. One of my favorites and one that has actually helped me a lot is her discussion of "Little Fear Guy" in the chapter about depression and anxiety. I remember how I laughed when she described her Little Fear Guy to be Barney Fife from Andy Griffith, who always got the town folk stirred up about some imagined threat or danger. I realized from this example that by encouraging a child to objectify the source of their worry generator, and recognize it as well intentioned but not always accurate in it's depiction of what's going on, they can then feel empowered to update Little Fear Guy with new information that tells them that their survival is truly not at risk.

This is by far transcends all other parenting books that I have read, it truly is inspired and brilliant.

37 of 48 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new December 11, 2009

By Dennis

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'll be the voice of dissent and say I don't see what's so great. The book can be boiled down to use active listening, and look at things from your child's viewpoint. These are important things and the author does a nice job of presenting them. However, she gets to be redundant explaining the same two points repeatedly, and she doesn't break any new ground.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best parenting book March 5, 2013

By Ready Mommy

Format:Paperback

Susan Stiffelman seems to be a wonderful therapist with a talent for generating specific, feasible strategies for caregivers in need of guidance; her book, however, adds little to the parenting advice genre.

In order to create joyful, resilient kids, Stiffelman urges parents to take a "Captain of the Ship" role which derives unwavering authority from a foundation of empathy-based parenting. Her approach essentially combines "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child" - the empathy bible - and "Parenting with Love & Logic" - the definitive source for "consultant parenting" whereby a parent distances herself emotionally from her kids' problems in order to remain a steady and firm source of support. Unfortunately for Stiffelman, the gorgeous melding of yin and yang accomplished by merging these two methods (i.e., feel with them enough to understand and respect their ups and downs but don't rise and fall with their emotions) is better achieved by reading those two books.

That said, Stiffelman has an interesting take on a few of Gottman's and Cline/Fay's best points - and a softer, more maternal tone - that might be a better fit for some readers:

- "Focus on loosening your need for your child to behave properly so that you can feel you're a good parent, [and e]xplore the meaning you're assigning to your child's problematic behavior." After all, "it's always our thoughts about the events of our lives - rather than the events themselves - that cause us to get upset...." (In other words, try not to generalize from your kid dillydallying after you ask her to put on her shoes to the conclusion that she's a passive-resistant little s*** who has no respect for you and has begun a lifelong struggle with authority that will only end when you can force her to put on her f*&^ing sneakers.)

- "Give direction from connection." Begin an interaction with "Act I" which is essentially listening and prompting disclosure with nonjudgmental, noninvasive questions like ("`What is it like to be you?' and `Tell me more?'"), and then, only if your kid "invites you to the party" proceed to "Act II," offering assistance. Sometimes Act II must be delayed for quite some time. "[D]uring the storm of your child's misbehavior, avoid lecturing, explaining, or advising. This is not a teachable moment." (File this last bit in the easier-said-than-done folder.)

- When your child flips out, respond to the "neck down" feelings prompting the outburst, not the "neck up" words the child chooses to express those feelings.

She also offers a few pearls of parenting wisdom that I haven't encountered in written form:

- "I am not a big fan of forcing children to apologize . . . [because] children who chronically violate others and are coerced into offering up an apology simply become good at apologizing; they don't generally modify their behavior very much." (Hear, hear!)

- Create attachment by following the six stages of relationships: "proximity, sameness, belonging/loyalty, significance, love, and being known." (In other words, start - or begin to repair a relationship - by just being near the kid, then point out interests you share, etc.)

- "[I]nstead of [trying to figure] out how to fix a problematic situation, . . . think back to the point at which you could have prevented it from happening and resolve to take action at that juncture in future interactions with your child." (My husband and I figured out this little gem - that falls under the general rubric of "let go of the guilt when you go wrong and focus your energy prospectively" - for sidestepping the crushing feeling of powerlessness that accompanied our daughter's first year.)

- When attempting to convince an older child to do something like attend an unappealing family event, say something along the lines of "it's your choice, but going is just the right thing to do."

- View your kid's behavior surrounding minor disappointment (like getting to the end of a bag of chips) to the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) and enable her to experience each stage. (This downright mind-blowing trick has given me the ability to step outside the current emotional dynamic and watch my daughter's fit unfold with a sort of lovingly detached interest.)

- In order to help kids with indecision, anxiety, and depression introduce "ABC thinking" (where A is "the actual event, as it would be impartially reported," B is "the belief we construct about the event, or our interpretation of it," and C is "the consequence of our believing what we believed in `B,'" essentially urging them to consider alternate B's in order to mitigate yucky C's); tell them to "ask the future you" for advice (to help gain perspective); and remind them that "[t]he fact that a thought shows up doesn't mean you need to make it a sandwich!"

In sum, I would love to grab a cup of tea with Susan Stiffelman (despite balking at her description of timeouts as a "violation of connectedness [that] damages the parent-child relationship") and would recommend her as a therapist for a struggling parent or child in a heartbeat; her book just isn't one of my top picks for parenting advice. Read more ›