Sarah B. (caffeinegirl) reviewed on 5/17/2010 + 114 more book reviews

This book is written in high Self-Help style, and I had to work to get past the terrible writing and into the messages the author is trying to convey. Fortunately, it is written in language simple enough for a child to follow, so a little extra work on the way wasn't much to ask.

That being said, the book did a good job of describing why we lose our tempers, which is what I picked it up for. I was hoping for some strategies for how to stay calm when one's buttons are being pushed, and I was disappointed in that. Instead, Runkel seems to be encouraging parents to change their big pictures so that they understand why their buttons are being pushed, why the button-pushing is so effectively enraging them, and why they must not engage with it. Presumably, being able to resist the rage comes later, after you have changed your whole understanding of parenting. Since his new "revolutionary" understanding of parenting pretty closely matches what I already thought, I don't have much to hope for.

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