Several families at our Foster Parent class recommended 1-2-3 Magic.  I was talking to my friend A-, who is a quadriplegic mom (so she completely relies on verbal control of her kid); her kid is almost 2 and she really needed to figure out some new methods of getting behavior from her daughter.

I loved this book because of a few key points that I learned a lot from and will use in my parenting, regardless of whether I am using the 1-2-3 Magic method.

• It seperates “stop” and “start” behaviors, pointing out that how you get kids to do these different categories of behavior is going to be different.
• It seperates the “heat of the moment” of conflict from the lesson of the conflict.  It doesn’t try to get communication going when tempers are flared.
• It focuses on giving kids individual attention rather than trying to do things in larger groups when jealousies may be triggered and when sometimes noone gets their needs met.
• It gives clear examples of how to set up systems of punishment and reward that gets the whole family in a habit of understanding what is expected.

Basically, the premise is that behaviors can be stopped by simply getting the kids used to counting up to a time-out.  It gives them 2 chances within a short period of time to alter their behavior, then leads them to a punishment. The book also offers 7 suggestions for starting behaviors, including punishments and reward systems.

After reading the reviews, I have noted several problems with the book that others have mentioned.  First is that counting to get desired behavior can be obnoxious sometimes.  On the other hand, I see it as a last resort.  The whole point is that talking to your kids isn’t working, it can escalate into an argument and your kid still isn’t getting the desired behavior.  I actually think that this book is oriented towards people that have anger-management issues because at the beginning it speaks of avoiding hitting your kids.  Not that the book won’t work for anyone, it can.

Secondly, it has a bias about kids that not everyone will agree with.  It is premised on the fact that children are not rational small people, but selfish and greedy by nature.  They suggest that teaching kids from a young age is more similar to animal training than to working with other adults.  This leads to a pretty formulaic approach to time-out based punishment.  I agree with the criticisms that there is more to teaching kids than this.  Again, the whole point of the book is that during the heat of the battle of wills is probably not the right time to have that conversation for most families. The kid is upset, maybe the parent is, too.  Everyone needs a time-out before the lesson can really be considered.  Of course, this may not be true for all families, but many of the negatively portrayed scenarios described in this book sure remind me of my family.

So, I think that rather than dissing this book, it needs to be considered that it is actually not meant to be the only resource that parents will be using.  It is simply a discipline system that is a tool among other resources that one is using to teach.  Now I am reading How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so that Kids Will Talk, which I hope will be a good companion to it.