Parenting Teens With Love And Logic: Preparing Adolescents for Responsible Adulthood, Updated and Expanded Edition Hardcover – May 3, 2006

I recently read Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, and I found it to be a valuable resource for navigating the complexities of raising teenagers. The book offers a thoughtful approach that combines empathy with practical strategies, aiming to foster responsibility and respect in teens.The Love and Logic method emphasizes the importance of setting clear boundaries while also allowing teens to make their own choices and learn from their consequences. It’s a balanced approach that encourages positive communication and problem-solving without resorting to heavy-handed discipline.One of the book’s strengths is its practical advice, which is grounded in real-world scenarios and easy to implement. The strategies are designed to help parents build a stronger relationship with their teens while guiding them towards more responsible behavior.Overall, Parenting Teens with Love and Logic is a worthwhile read for any parent looking for effective and compassionate ways to handle the challenges of raising adolescents. It provides a solid framework for creating a supportive and respectful family dynamic.

I've long been a fan of Parenting with Love and Logic... I purchased this book for a friend who was struggling with how to deal with her 12 year old daughter who is delightful, but a typical, challenging teenager. Mom was frustrated with the increasingly frequent "battles" over the smallest things, and not liking the feeling of always being at odds with her daughter. I was hoping sharing Love & Logic would help encourage her and provide her with some effective tools. Well, she called tonight to say she is working her way through the book and has already put some of the ideas she's learned into practice - with good results. What she is learning has caused her to review and re-evalate her past power struggles with her daughter from a new vantage point and recognize why she was struggling. This book is helping her find ways to effectively diffuse and disengage from power struggles and start teaching her daughter to take responsibility (instead of always trying to make things Mom & Dad's "fault"). She is excited that she is starting to see a difference in such a short time - and now her husband and her mom are anxious to also read this book so they can all have the same approach. Love & Logic is practical, logical, easy to understand, and effective. Highly recommend this book and this parenting program to parents and grandparents of children and teens of all ages!

A colleague of mine told me about Love and Logic and, after watching a video, I bought this book. What I love about the information is that it's sensible and easy to follow. I began to use it with my own two teens and felt, for the first time in a long while, I was doing something right from a parenting perspective. I'm also a therapist and work with parents of teens engaging in high risk behaviors. This is a book I would absolutely recommend to them as well. The book literally tells you how to address your teen to avoid power struggles, ie fights. My house has been much more peaceful since reading this book. If you have a teen and your parenting style tends to be permissive or authoritarian, this is a great resource for moving more to the middle to help your teen learn personal responsibility and to be able to stand on his or her own two feet as an adult.

from the very first page, this book gives you valuable insight into how teens think and feel differently than parents, and why they act the way they do. It provides practical ways to head off arguments before they start, and how to encourage teens to think and act independently and responsibly. Within the first chapter, and putting those suggestions to the test, the tone of conversation with my 12 year old changed instantly. By the time I'd finished the book and been using the tips for a solid week, I was really amazed at how much better I was handling challenging situations.There are three reasons why I dinged a star.1) the way the dialogue examples are written, it plays off as kind of sarcastic and as if the teen is just going to go , "OK! Sure!" when you use the "one-liners". That's not real life and I feel the authors could have expounded more on how to say the phrases lovingly, as well as giving some examples where the teen attempted to escalate to an argument. All the hypothetical kids in this book are far too agreeable!2) The conservative Christian slant. This is EXTREMELY valuable advice for parents of any or no religion, and the Bible references and such only serve to turn off parents who might otherwise greatly benefit from this book. Also, the chapter about sex and the authors' suggestion for parents of children who identify as gay, was a bit difficult to read. I say difficult because it goes on about how "this isn't the 'norm', and it goes against our faith, and blah blah blah." Minus one point. BUT...rather than being homophobic, the authors just left it as, "God says to love all people no matter what, and gay kids deserve our love as much as straight kids". Plus one point. It does lump homosexuality into the same chapter with some dangerous and immoral behaviors. Minus one point. So, there was some good and some bad in how the authors chose to address the issue of homosexuality. I feel that they tried too hard to be diplomatic, and it just came off as outdated and uneducated advice. Not offensive, per se, just not very intelligent.3) One part of the book gave an example of parents kicking a 15 year old out of their home. They essentially gave her the choice of shaping up or living on the streets. I don't care what my kid has done or is doing, there is nothing on this earth that would make me suggest the streets as an option. If the behavior is THAT BAD, there are probably some bigger issues going on, so why not seek counseling or a group home, a mental health facility, or even jail if the behavior is threatening and illegal! At least in jail they are fed and sheltered and I won't be charged with criminal neglect and abandonment.The main takeaways from this book are to start from a place of love and a nurturing relationship, if that's not there you need to build a relationship first before any kind of discipline can happen. I like that the authors stressed that you can't have authority or credibility as a parent if you don't have the trust and connection with your kid. Also, that you should always expect children to handle their own problems, make their own choices within the options that you provide, and allow them to feel the full weight of the consequences of their choices. If you can do those two things, and refuse to engage in a fight-repeating to the child that you love them too much to argue-you will have a good handle on the love and logic method.