One interesting side-effect of checking out ebooks from the library is that by the time the book arrives, I completely forget who recommended it or why. But Kindle told me that Positive Discipline was checked out, so off I went.

The good news is that it started off with a bang. It made a really fascinating distinction: discipline and punishment are actually two very different words that get blurred together when talking about parenting. Think of the discipline of a samurai or monk; it’s not really about punishment per se.

Unfortunately that was the peak. The rest of the book was just recycling the most generic parenting advice you could possibly imagine. Be nice to your spouse. Have a shared plan. Don’t physically harm your child. In fact, there’s probably some sort of literary drinking game where you take a shot each time the authors exhort you to “not spank”. You probably won’t make it out of chapter 2 without acute alcohol poisoning, but you’ll have a lot more memorable experience.

The shallowness of this book was kind of a mystery to me until I realized that the original book is just “Positive Discipline”. So this version, ages one to three, is either filling in a gap or a delightful cash grab to help cover the authors’ second mortgage. So I’ll read the real version (by process of elimination appropriate for 4+) when we get a little closer to that particular Rubicon.