Facts of Life...

Now, I have not read the book by Lisa Welchel, from the Facts Of Life TV show. But from reading reviews and her own comments on Amazon, I cannot imagine why anyone would. It does not seem acceptable for me, no matter what the behavior of my child in parking lot, to drag them by their hair. She sets it up as though she's giving the child 2 choices, hold her hand or she holds their hair. This is nuts. To me, this is just a altered version of getting results the same way spanking gets results - picking something that is quick and easy for the parent which is so traumatic, the child quickly changes behavior...for the moment. What are we truly teaching here? If my son won't hold my hand, he doesn't get to walk, he knows I will carry him (which he doesn't like), so this particular behavior was not a problem after the second time. I agree with teaching him that he chooses the consequences by his actions, I just don't think the consequences should include hurting the child.

If that doesn't work...then I move onto my list...I don't do anything to my son that shouldn't be done to others, meaning no hitting, no hurting on purpose (like pulling hair, etc.). If he's misbehaving, I generally have a couple things that I do...

remove favorite toys, one by one, until the offending behavior stops.

tell son to sit in time out facing wall until he calms down

No, neither gets me instantaneous quiet and compliance. But he's learning. He knows that offending actions have consequences. We're just working thru what all counts as offending actions, but that is to be expected, he's TWO.