2008-05-18 A great, great book

I totally agree with the other positive reviews: it's a great book and I cannot recommend it enough to all parents, carers or even people in general, because the emphasis on connection and playfulness is important in any type of relationship - though of course the subject here is parenting. I've seen books about parenting which use some spiritual vocabulary such as inner light and soul, which rather puts me off. This one does have one or two metaphors (e.g. it talks about the tower of powerlessness) but they do make sense and help bring the point across. There's a lot of good stuff here (e.g. practical suggestions on how to deal in certain situations) but for me the most valuable chapters were those towards the end which deal with the issue of discipline. The author put in words the feelings I've always had about punishment. He sees most 'misbehaviour' as just a matter of disconnection. It makes perfect sense that rather than using punishment to deal with it - which will in fact deepen the disconnection - we should rather try to re-establish the connection. One of the ways of connecting with our kids is playfulness and so Cohen strongly encourages us to engage with our kids in a playful way as much as possible and use our sense of humour in our daily encounters with them. Using his words: "You will do a much better job of teaching your values and getting cooperation with your rules by being playful than by being stern".