You Can't Make Me (But I Can Be Persuaded)

You Can’t Make Me (But I Can Be Persuaded) By Cynthia Ulrich Tobias I am thankful to Blogging for Books for providing this book for me to review free of charge and this review is purely my own opinion. Always searching for helpful hints on how to lovingly encourage my red-headed four year old son to see the point of obeying, I chose this book . The subtitle is “Strategies for Bringing out the Best in Your Strong Willed Child”. In the first couple of chapters the author discusses exactly what a strong-willed personality is and that is is not necessarily a bad personality trait…as long as the individual learns to focus his will on positive results. Included is a short quiz to determine if you, your spouse, and your children are strong-willed. There are many different theories of how to raise a child with a strong will. You do not want to break the child’s will but you do want to enforce the rules. The author attempts to show how merely changing how you communicate your rules, your wishes, etc. can relieve a huge burden of parenting a SWC. The things I liked about this book were that points were made clearly and with examples. Already I have tried changing how I communicate and I have seen very positive results. I liked the Scripture verses provided with each chapter that strengthen the author’s concept that relationship will always be more important than rules. I liked, and disliked, the fact that certain points were repeated over and over again. I liked it personally because it helped me to retain those points after I finished the book. I disliked it as a reviewer because it was so repetitive. Yes, I have two separate opinions  Two of my favorite tips were : 1) Lighten up but don’t let up. This chapter went into the value that humor can have in your relationship. Using humor to defuse the potential battle that is to take place. 2) Ask more questions, issue fewer orders. This works with me too. Ask me to help you and I am more than willing. Order me around and I am resentful. It comes back to communication. This is also working with my child. Overall, I thought this was a sensitive addressing of the issue of strong-willed children and how to use love and humor to help nurture the child. It gave helpful examples and it was good to read of other parents dealing with the exact same situations that I have dealt with.