Customer Reviews

Setting Limits: How to Raise Responsible, Independent Children by Providing Clear Boundaries (Revised and Expanded Second Edition)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent book for parents who are tired of yelling, power struggles and constantly repeating themselves. Applicable for all ages and includes separate chapters for teenagers and children with ADD.

This author shows how our discipline methods appear through the childs eyes (not always pleasant), and why they often just ignore our rules. Children often know exactly what we want and what upsets us, but rarely know what our real expectations are. They compare our words to our actions and can learn to ignore our words if our actions don't follow up.
The book teaches parents to elimninate soft limits and clearly communicate your expectations, and gaining cooperation by being consistent. There are countless examples of realistic discipline situations which cover a wide range problems. At the end of each chapter, there are parent study group questions which are helpful.
There are also separate chapters for problem areas such as handling chores, homework and descriptions of age appropriate tasks.
A logical and staight forward approach with clear messages. Many of the parenting "What If?" questions are answered instead of avoided as in some parenting books. I would highly recommend this book to all parents.
Some other helpful parenting books I would also suggest are: "The Manipulative Child: How to Regain Cotrol and Raise Resilient, Resourceful, and Independent Kids" by Swihart and Cotter, and "Ain't Misbehavin" by William P Garvey.

...reach for this book first. It is the perfect emergency handbook for out of control kids and their parents. With very little fanfare, MacKenzie shows you have to regain control over your children without screaming, threatening or inflicting bodily harm. He shows you how to set firm limits and let your children test those limits and learn your new boundaries.

The truly amazing thing about his method is, it works! It is humane, rationale, devoid of all the squishy politically correct nouveau-parenting verbiage, and smacks of common sense. I tried it on my kids, who are at times utterly impossible, and after about a week, they started listening to me the first time instead of the twentieth. This is the one that I am shoving under my hubby's nose to save him from his shouting matches with the kids. And when he's not reading it, I keep thumbing through it to remind myself of the things in it I need to remember. Bad parent habits are not easy to kick. Keep this book on your night-table, and take a dose of it every night at bedtime-- then watch your family's sanity grow.

I have read plenty of parenting books and have disagreed with some of the material. In Mr. MacKenzie's book there was not a single thing I disagreed with. It really helped me to understand why my children behave the way they do and how to change their behavior. I have been recommending this book to everyone I know. It is a must have book for parents.

Setting limits and sticking to them is a very difficult thing to do for must of us as parents, as well as in other parts of our lives. While this book is the best book, hands down, on parenting issues that I have read...I found it to be helpful in finding my "limits" and setting them in other in other relationships in my life. People, not only children, learn quickly to to respect and respond to your new boundries... It is quite an empowering thing, for all involved. Try it, you will not be sorry!

I got this book when I started having problems with my 4-yr old. He's pretty compliant most of the time, but recently started testing my limits. I was perfectly aware that the problem was with my techniques, not with my child. I just knew that I wasn't getting my message across to him, but didn't know what to do. Reading this book I learned that I was on the right track, but having problems with determining good consequences and following through with them consistently. This book gives very detailed examples of mis-behavior and many ideas for consequences. It also has several "what if" scenarios for those times that the discipline process does not work as expected (which happens to me a lot). This is the book that I will recommend to every parent who gives an inkling of interest in improving their parenting skills.

As the parent of two sons, 8 and 12, I have tried everything! This book is very clear and readable with lots of practical examples. Best of all, it puts the responsibility on the child--right where it belongs. Dr. MacKenzie communicates in a lighthearted and logical fashion. This book will begin making EVERYONE'S life easier within a week of starting to read it--it should be issued to parents at their childs birth! Easy to follow and use--I can't recommend it highly enough!

This book should be issued to all new parents! Setting limits is an easy to read book and it really teaches you how to become a great parent. I'm a father of two kids ages 4 and 8 and I just can't get over how quickly they responded to the methods I learned in this book.

I haven't seen other books about child discipline, so my review is based only on how helpful I found this one book. It's possible other books would be better.

The strong virtue of this book is that it has an extremely clear and (it seems) very well-justified method of getting kids to do what you want them to do; and it hammers the message home in many ways. Basically, it teaches a simple method but in great detail. The method can be stated in just a few sentences, actually, I think: if you want a child to behave, inform him in a matter-of-fact voice of what (reasonable) consequences will follow if he does not behave, or else give him a number of acceptable choices (and also specify what the consequence for doing anything else). If he obeys, praise him. If he does not obey, carry out the promised consequence unemotionally.

So far with our toddler, this seems to work very well. Moreover, while it might seem repetitious, the different ways of "coming at" the basic method actually helps to teach it. The fact that the method seems to work, and that it is explained pretty well, is why I give the book four stars.

I don't give it five stars for two reasons. First, while perfectly clear, the prose is pretty pedestrian; but it's not too bad, and given that the author has an Ed.D., it could have been much worse! More annoying, however, in the many examples given of adults speaking to children, the adults are made to say things like, "What's a better choice?" and "I appreciate your consideration," or presenting a number of options and then saying "What would you like to do?" In praise, the parent is made to say, "That was a good choice." How many parents talk this way, or want to talk this way? I'm sure some do, but geez. Maybe it's just me, but this makes the parents sound like condescending bureaucrats rather than, well, parents. Part of what's annoying here is that the children know that they are not in control. (Think back how this would have sounded to you as a child yourself!) So they can sense when a parent is being condescending in pretending that ultimately the child can "choose" to do something the parents don't want him to do. No, he can't, if we're setting limits; that's why they're called limits! An actually more respectful way, it seems to me, is to say--in a matter-of-fact voice and unemotionally, I'm sure MacKenzie has that right--"You can do X or Y. If you do anything else, I'm going to Z (take away the toy, whatever)." Or: "Please X. If you don't, I'm going to Y." And to praise compliance, you don't say, "That was a good choice," you say simply "Thanks, buddy" or "Thanks for doing X, good job." That seems less condescending to me.

This is purely stylistic, though. It's easy to come up with your own ways of talking to your kids, so this isn't a big deal.

The second problem I have is that MacKenzie sometimes adverts to this interesting thesis, that you teach your children how to solve problems by how you set limits or punish them. So, for instance, if you spank a child, you teach the child that violence is the way to solve problems. Or, if you argue with a child, you teach the child that arguing is the way to solve problems. In saying this, MacKenzie is at his least persuasive and helpful. I was looking for some evidence of this interesting psychological claim, but he presented none. The thesis probably has some grain of truth, but it just doesn't sound very plausible to me; I suspect it might have ideological grounds more than solid scientific grounds. In one case, the author tips his hand and undermines his own case when he says that his more "strong-willed" child would not turn down the television. The author threatened to turn it off if he did not, but the child refused, so off went the television. So far, so good--but they went through this "dance" 10 or 12 times (over a period of however many weeks or months) before the child started doing so when asked the first time. If the author's thesis about our disciplinary methods teaching more than we intend is correct, then what did this rigamarole teach his child? Perhaps that you get your way by being annoyingly repetitive.

Don't get me wrong--neither of these problems with the book really reduces its effectiveness very much. It's a very helpful book and I'm glad I bought it.

This book is easy to read, easy to apply and quick to get you results. Dealing with children that constantly challenge you can be draining, stressfull and can make you feel like a failure. This book gives you a clear understanding of how to help your kids "make the decision" and puts the consequences in their court. It takes 95% of the stress off of child raising and makes it a pleasure as it should be!
I loved this book so much that I hand it out to strangers!
Thank you so much for making my life easier and giving me the tools to raise my kids self esteem!
Suzanne
USA

I bought this book when I knew there had to be an expert out there who knew better about how to have a happy life without arguing with my kids. My energy was completely liquidated at the end of the day from repeating things, bargaining, arguing and repeating some more and sometimes even giving in. Every time I gave in to my kids, they won and my stomach churned....this had to stop! I was very open for advice, so my attitude made all the difference when reading about how to get my children to behave without yelling, arguing or doing anything that required an energy drain out of me. The results were evident in less than I week (and I hadn't even finished the book by then). The techniques discussed can be applied to all ages and the discretion of the parent is necessary when choosing how to explain things according to the age of your child. I highly recommend this book for a happy family life with no fighting or complaining.