When your child is making a scene in the cereal aisle, philosophizing is not what’s called for. You just want to know what to do. Nancy Samalin’s “Loving Without Spoiling” (Contemporary Books, $14.95) is chock-full of what-to-do advice for the frustrating moments in child rearing that seem to come up a few hundred times a day: a child’s dawdling, whining, tattling and declining to wear boots in the snow, to name a few.
Samalin, the founder and director of Parent Guidance Workshops in New York City, makes clear, practical suggestions covering all sorts of familiar situations, right down to actual language you can use. It’s better to tell a child what to do than what not to do, she advises: Don’t say, “Don’t run.” Say, “Walk when you cross the street.” Not “Don’t litter,” but “That’s garbage. Garbage goes in the garbage can.”
She says many parents go too far with explanations when a simple reminder, firmly but lovingly expressed, will do: “Homework before TV. . . . Coats go in the closet. . . . Seat belts. . . . “
Children’s wants, Samalin writes, are a bottomless pit; her goal is to help parents feel less guilty about setting limits.
On treating siblings equally: “Fairness is not achievable–at least not in the way kids define it.”
