Parenting with ‘Love & Logic’ philosophy

Dave Hoppe’s parenting epiphany came while fixing dinner.

A clinical social worker, Hoppe had been trained in “Love & Logic” behavioral management techniques that he used successfully with the difficult and troubled children he worked with.

When it came to his own parenting, however, he tended to rely on the technique he’d learned from his dad: my way or the highway.

But one evening some years ago, as Hoppe’s 3-year-old son demanded, “I’m hungry! I want my dinner!” something clicked. Hoppe realized arguing only escalated the situation. And he realized he could use Love & Logic techniques with his own child.

“Feel free to come back when you’re in a better mood,” he calmly told his son.

More yelling. More whining.

“Feel free to come back when you’re in a better mood,” Hoppe repeated. His message: You’re hungry, and it’s OK to be angry. Just don’t do it in my face.

After Hoppe repeated his line a few more times, his son wandered off. The boy tried pleading his case when his mom arrived, but she also ignored him. Dinner was served without incident.

Hoppe, chief operating officer of Charlotte’s Alexander Youth Network, recounted that story on a recent evening to a dozen parents who’d signed up to learn Love & Logic skills for themselves. Through a grant, Hoppe has taught “Becoming a Love & Logic Parent” classes for the past three years, free of charge. Not every technique works with every child, he says, but he believes the program can produce dramatic behavior improvements.

The Love & Logic parenting philosophy was created about 25 years ago by former school principal Jim Fay and psychiatrist Foster Cline. It calls for parents to let children make choices and live with the consequences of bad choices so they learn responsibility.

It also teaches parents how to avoid power struggles with their kids, how to set limits and how to create consequences for a child’s actions. The strategies are designed for kids of any age. One woman who took Hoppe’s class told him the techniques also worked with her husband.

Hoppe says he’s sold on the program because it does more than show parents how to control kids. It helps them teach their children to become responsible adults. “Punishment works in the moment, until the next time they act up,” he says. “I’m parenting for when my children are 30.”

Often, Love & Logic calls for parents to reword what they’d typically say to their kids. Instead of delivering a threat (Clean your room or you’re grounded!) you offer a choice (When your room is cleaned, you can go play.) The outcome is often the same, but the changed wording puts the choice more clearly in the child’s lap.

Parents also must pick their battles, Love & Logic says. If you try and control every aspect of a child’s life, you’ll create a child who seizes control with negative behaviors, such as tantrums. You’ll also be exhausted.

Hoppe urged parents in his class to let go of one of their children’s conflict-causing behaviors. Perhaps you stop telling your son to pull up his droopy pants, since you can’t control the drooping when he’s out of your sight, anyway. Or you stop nagging your child to clean her room, though you continue requiring her to pick up her belongings everywhere else in the house. Hoppe came to this arrangement with his sons. “I give them their rooms,” he said.

“This is not about being permissive,” he told the parents. “It is about knowing what you have control over.”

The Love & Logic approach to …

Homework battles

You want your kids to do well in school, and you preach the importance of school. But “if I make them do their homework, who doesn’t have to take responsibility?” Dave Hoppe asks. Love & Logic counsels parents to let your children fail – in a safe way – so they learn from their mistakes. Help them when they ask, but if your kids bomb a test because they didn’t study, they’ll learn the cost of procrastination. It’s important to let kids fail when they’re younger, because “the price tag is really small when they’re younger,” Hoppe says. That price climbs with age. Kids who haven’t learned to take responsibility for their work by college are likely to flunk out or drop out.

Misbehavior in public

We’ve all seen the child in the grocery store aisle throwing a tantrum or defying his parents. Hoppe has his own grocery store tale: One of his sons, then 3, began whining, falling to the ground and kicking at canned goods. Hoppe offered him a choice: Feel free to walk in front of or behind the cart. When that didn’t work, he told his son they were leaving. “You can walk with me, or go with your feet in the air,” he told him. His son continued to balk, so Hoppe hoisted his son onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walked out of store with the boy wailing. Hoppe gave him the opportunity to correct behavior, and he gave him choices. When that didn’t work, he took control. Hoppe says that was the last time his son threw a fit in a store.