Mindful Parenthood

MINDFUL PARENTS - STOP PARENTING AND START LIVING

ABOUT ME

I suffered the usual anger, frustration and distress of Traditional Parenting with my first son, all the while believing I was a perfect parent. I was a stay-at-home mom in the nineteen-fifties surrounded by other parents who shared my lifestyle and Parenting techniques. We didn't know the problems we had with our children were the direct result of our Traditional Authoritarian Parenting practices.

A few months after the birth of another son when my first son was eight years old, I was invited to an introductory talk on PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING and my world was changed forever.

P.E.T. transformed me from a screaming, punishing horror of a person into a problem-solving human being. And here I am 47 years later, apologizing to my oldest son for the way I treated him.

Speaking from personal experience, I see one reason to learn how to be an effective non-punishing parent is to save yourself from the terrible guilt when in your "old age" you find yourself looking back on your mistakes. Allow me to spare you this guilt!

This book can prevent such an unhappy outcome as it guides you toward and into the wonderful world of effective problem solving ways of Working With children in place of the ineffective damaging ways of Doing To them.

In 1968 I organized a group of Dallas,Texas parents hoping to stop the physical punishment of school children. I had been alerted to the problem by an article in the Dallas Morning News about a third grade boy suffering from a ruptured kidney after being beaten with a wooden board, called a paddle, by an assistant principal.

Our group was made up of naive housewives with no political experience. At school board meetings we would argue against the educational merits of physical punishment. We always heard a version of the same answer: "We believe physical punishment is useful in disciplining children and improving the educational environment. Although you believe differently, this is only a matter of opinion. We hold a different opinion and will continue paddling students."

We brought a Federal lawsuit against the Dallas Independent School District with B. F. Skinner* and other psychologists as expert witnesses. We lost the suit after the Federal judge declared he had been hit plenty when he was a kid and it didn't hurt him.

I retired in 2004 to move from Texas to Seattle to be near my oldest son. Soon after my move, I heard a review on the radio of the book, GHOSTS FROM THE NURSERY Tracing The Roots Of Violence, and learned, so many years after our confrontations with the school principals, we who fought against physical punishment have been proved to be right. With modern brain mapping and brain imaging we can see what goes on in the brains of infants and children when they are hit, yelled at, treated harshly and/or neglected.

I was so energized by this vindication and support for my personal long-standing beliefs, I was propelled into becoming a Certified Parent Educator teaching Parent Effectiveness Training. Keeping up with the latest research, I continue to learn more about Child Development and how to best work with infants and children in providing an environment to support their potential for growing into happy, productive, well-functioning individuals.

I find great pleasure in passing this learning along to you!

* Although Dr. Skinner advocated against all punishments, including

the paddling of school children, I have come to view his development of the Behaviorism methods for controlling children to be limitless in the damage they have done to our children and to our society. My reasons for this belief are detailed in the pages of this book.