I am a huge Love & Respect fan. Dr. Emerson Eggerich's book for couples has helped me communicate with my husband and understand his point of view better. It also even helped me to put into words what I needed. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see this concept of Love & Respect played out into the family dynamics of parenting.
The basic concept of Love & Respect was that women need to feel loved and men need to feel respected. When a woman does not feel loved, she doesn't show respect, when a man doesn't feel respected, he does not show love- and then the crazy cycle begins in the spousal relationship.
For parenting, the roles are that the parents have the need to feel respected and the child has the need to feel loved. When one of these becomes lacking, the same crazy cycle begins. Most of the book is focused on how the parent can address their role in loving their children through the acronym GUIDES. They are the adult in the relationship, so much of the responsibility lies within the parent to correct a crazy cycle situation.
What I liked:
My favorite chapters were the 'pink and blue glasses' of parenting towards the end and the discipline chapter. I felt enlightened by how parenting can look so different between raising men and raising ladies. While I currently only have daughters, I found the insight into a mother/son relationship very helpful even as I interact with my nephew. I also loved getting ideas on how to encourage my husband to have a loving relationship with my daughters- and how he can help show them what a Godly man looks and acts like. The discipline chapter was helpful in that it reminded me of so many great foundations in parenting. Even though much of the information was not revolutionary or new, it is a great reminder as you are in the trenches of parenting young children to be very intentional about the WHY of discipline so that the how becomes more natural- especially as the children grow. There were many great real life examples from the authors life and other families that I found most helpful and encouraging.
What I didn't care for:
Overall the book was quite repetitive, which made it longer than needed. I would have loved a shorter version with more succinct examples and ideas.
What frustrated me the most was that the first few chapters (the G, U, and I chapters from the GUIDES acronym) were consistently referring to a future chapter- the D for discipline chapter. While the acronym was cute, I felt as though the D should have come sooner in the book so one was not constantly being referred to something that hadn't been read yet. It would have made for better flow of the book even though it would have 'disrupted' the acronym set up.
I would recommend this book to other parents simply because I trust the author and his integrity. He has proven himself with his previous Love&Respect book and so I respect his opinions and thoughts. Tread carefully though as one man's thoughts on parenting will not work with every child or every home set up. Test against scripture (which is often used as 'proof' in the book) and listen to the Holy Spirit as you parent your children.
Happy reading!
*I received a copy of the book free of charge from book sneeze but my opinions are my own.
