Lisa Scottoline Quotes

It's perfectly possible to love your toddler but struggle to like them when times are hard.

When two kids are being completely berserk, and they're naked and throwing food around, sometimes I just let it go because I can see a future where they're going to be dressed, and they're going to be at school. So I kind of let stuff go sometimes.

I have my own grown-up versions of temper tantrums, too. I have a hard time not getting hurt when my kids have meltdowns.

Like most parents, Gloria and I had to deal with the problems of rebellion in our children. We realized that it had to be stopped quickly before it developed into a serious situation.

How do you scare some sense into a child who doesn’t fear death?

It is one of those weird social things. Even as parents we say, oh, don't be sad. You know, come here, we'll distract you with some ice cream or something. And I don't know if that's always the best thing. But it's certainly - you understand why people do it.

A strong-willed child - a strong-willed child, more than anyone else, needs to learn to use emotion and discussion to resolve issues. That's the last child in the whole world you want to hit.

Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted. Two or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point, 'You must obey me.'

Usually right when I'm feeling it, right when it's happening, I always find I need to be in some sort of survival mode or mature mom mode, so it always seems to come later that I have the breakdown.

I told my son, who's 11, "Look, I don't care if you curse - it's other people that care." So we tried that experiment, and he just cursed all the time. And I was like, "All right, now I care that you curse." You try to have this idealized view, and it's like, "I don't care." But it's just going to cause chaos.

Obviously, you want to teach your child between right and wrong, respect and being kind to others, whether it's their sisters or parents. You try to teach them by example, talk to them and explain certain situations. But there's also a time to put them in time out or let them know they've made a mistake and try to learn from it.

It's different when your son is not typical, and you have to deal with him and handle him every single day.

As a father of two children, I am used to seeing kids in the midst of a five-alarm meltdown over the choice of DVD or the necessity of broccoli.

I have no problem yelling at anybody's kid - free of charge!

Having a two-year-old is very hard. I feel like I'm in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman who is also physically abusive and never gets in trouble for it.

Real crying usually lasts two minutes or less, but may continue for five. After that point, the child is merely complaining... I would require him to stop the protest crying, usually by offering him a little more of whatever caused the original tears.

There is a trend in child-rearing that I find abhorrent: "Whatever the kids want to do is fine." For me, the classic example of this is when someone has a visitor and says, "Go kiss Aunt Gertrude," and Aunt Gertrude says, "She doesn't have to kiss me if she doesn't want to." Well, I think that's wrong.

Temper tantrums, however fun they may be to throw, rarely solve whatever problem is causing them.

Fussing over children who cry only encourages them. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior.

How do you make yourself not like someone?

When you're in the thick of raising your kids by yourself, you tend to keep a running list of everything you think you're doing wrong. I recommend taking a lot of family pictures as evidence to the contrary.

Long ago you may have given up control of your brain and set it on autopilot either because it just felt like too much work. And it is work! But for me, this work was well worth it for the prospect of not waking up sad every day.

My kids were completely out of control, while I was working fifteen hours a day plus weekends. I screamed a lot, something I'm not particularly proud of, but it was that or firearms.

Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud "snort" noises.) I don't know why parents don't do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you're a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won't have his friends hanging around your house all the time.

Parents must get across the idea that "I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior."