Parenting with Love and Logic

One reason choices work is that they create situations in which children are forced to think. Kids are given options to ponder, courses of action to choose. They must decide. Second, choices provide opportunities for children to make mistakes and learn from the consequences. With every wrong choice the children make, the punishment comes not from us but from the world around them. Then children don’t get angry at us; they get angry at themselves.
Another reason choices work is because they help us avoid getting into control battles with our children. Finally, choices provide our children with opportunities to hear that we trust their thinking abilities, thus building their self-confidence and the relationship between us and them.

Our kids have little chance to fight these statements. They’re too busy thinking about the choices they have been given and the consequences that may result from their choice

Love and Logic parents make statements with enforceable thinking words, telling their kids:
• What we will allow — “Feel free to join us for your next meal as soon as the lawn is mowed.”
• What we will do — “I’ll be glad to read you a story as soon as you’ve finished your bath.”
• What we will provide — “You may eat what is served, or you may wait and see if the next meal appeals to you more