\u201cThe world does not need another parenting book,\u201d writes Grimm in her own parenting book, where she likewise notes that parenting can be so exhausting and baffling that it can use all the advice manuals it can get. \u201cEvery day of parenting is Saigon in 1975,\u201d she writes. \u201cIt is often defeating, sometimes humiliating, and you are left to ponder at the end of the night whether you made the right decisions.\u201d In these pages, she relates some of the lessons she\u2019s learned in her years of raising her three children\u2014Hugo, Andr\u00e9, and \u201cexplosive\u201d Lulu (\u201ca Mussolini in a tow-headed body\u201d)\u2014comically stressing the severity of the struggle by invoking military manuals like The Art of\u00a0War. \u201cAs a parent,\u201d she writes, \u201cyou already know what it feels like to negotiate with terrorists.\u201d Here, she lays out some advice for other parents who may be feeling overwhelmed, giving them tips on how to get back their power by reestablishing authority, setting consistent boundaries, creating clear lines of communication, and building a proper balance between parental militarization and the wilder tendencies of children. She even proposes the SAFE model for hostile negotiations: Substantive Demands, Attunement (\u201cbuilding trust between the subject and the negotiator\u201d), Face (\u201cthe projected self-image of the subject\u201d), and Emotional Distress. Grimm uses this juxtaposition\u2014between the warm family emotions of most child-rearing guides and the tough language of military manuals\u2014to excellent comic effect, mentioning at one point that \u201cno class pets need to get hurt in the process\u201d while dispensing genuine advice on serious subjects. Her willingness to be frank about the defeats she\u2019s suffered at the hands of her little terrorists is bracing. Parents who are perhaps ashamed of feeling as if they\u2019re trapped in a war of nerves with enemy forces will likely appreciate hearing from a fellow combatant, particularly one with a smile on her face.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe world does not need another parenting book,\u201d writes Grimm in her own parenting book, where she likewise notes that parenting can be so exhausting and baffling that it can use all the advice manuals it can get. \u201cEvery day of parenting is Saigon in 1975,\u201d she writes. \u201cIt is often defeating, sometimes humiliating, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}