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Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime
By Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
HarperCollins
Hardback 320 pp $23
Paperback 336 pp $13

Well, I'd better put the personal disclaimer up front. Am I predisposed to like anything written by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, who penned the fabulous Raising Your Spirited Child? Absolutely. I still remember the sense of relief I felt when I read Kurcinka's groundbreaking book about how to accept, understand, and value a challenging child. Finally, someone who understood my trying toddler.

Kurcinka specializes in working with parents whose offspring are, as she puts it, "more" -- and by that she doesn't mean smarter, wittier, or better at sports. Rather, these are kids whose emotional wiring makes them more intense, energetic, sensitive, and persistent. For parents with such children -- like me -- her lively best-seller is a blessing.

After devouring Kurcinka's book, I learned how to work with a 2-year-old who ran away, whacked his playmates, and cleared a sandbox in minutes with his aggressive antics. The paperback -- dog-eared and underlined -- still sits on my bedside table.

So now, when my still-spirited preschooler announces at his first swimming lesson, "I'm going to cut you into pieces and throw glass in your eyes," I don't recoil in horror, turn red, or worry that I'm raising a psychopath. I quickly recollect what I learned from Kurcinka's first book and put it into practice. I calmly say, "I understand you feel scared right now. Would it help if I held your hand and walked you to the pool?" Nod to the affirmative. "OK. And when we get there, how about you tell your teacher what you need?" The 3-year-old whispers: "I need you to hold me, please." Mission accomplished. Body parts severed: 0. Eyesight intact. Thank you, MSK.

Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles, just out in paperback, is "more" of the same smart stuff that makes Raising Your Spirited Child a parent's life raft. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience working with families, Kurcinka presents common sense solutions to that bugaboo of every family's existence: the power struggle. She offers practical, clear, and easy-to-follow advice for parents who find themselves consistently pitted against their kids. The book details countless real-life examples of ways parents have learned to use conflicts as an opportunity to connect. Kurcinka encourages moms and dads not to slip into drill-sergeant mode but to become "emotion coaches," teaching kids how to handle feelings like frustration, anger, and fear and showing them how to get their needs met in an appropriate and respectful way.

Consider Terry, a participant in one of Kurcinka's workshops, a single working parent who has to get 2-year-old Tamara out the door -- and fast -- five days a week. Both mom and daughter were often screaming at each other by the time they got to daycare. Kurcinka helps Terry realize that Tamara's difficulty separating is a stress behavior typical for her age and that she needs more chances to connect with Mama before saying goodbye. So instead of struggling to hurry Tamara into her clothes, Terry starts by plopping her in the bath with some toys while she gets dressed for work beside her. They chat away, both happily doing their own thing, then sit down for a quick bite together before heading out for the day. No tears, no tantrums, no breakfast battles. The new routine takes the same amount of time and Terry doesn't do anything she wouldn't normally do during a typical day -- she just gives Tamara the attention she craves.

Who can argue with such success? The book initially focuses on building connections, with chapters on how to bring down intensity, enforce standards, and stop tantrums. There's a substantial section devoted to the role that temperament -- both our own and our child's -- plays in family feuds, material that will be familiar to readers of Raising Your Spirited Child. (Figuring out where you and your child score on the temperament scale is truly telling.)

Then comes an equally important section that concentrates on developing skills and selecting strategies to avoid clashes altogether. While parents and kids can't avoid disagreements, they can work together to solve problems to the satisfaction of both parties before battle lines are drawn, Kurcinka says. Simply catching yourself before you respond with an automatic "No!" and saying something like "I need to think about it" or "I need more information" or "Let's talk about this" helps a child learn to negotiate respectfully, considering the feelings of everyone involved.

Solutions such as these may sound simple, but make no mistake: There's work to be done here -- and not just for the kids. Kurcinka's approach helps parents recognize their own personality traits and conflict-resolution styles (which one of us hasn't played the intimidator at one time or another?) and assess how they factor into the family tug-of-war. But parents can reestablish their roles, the author argues, and learn that they don't have to threaten, scream, punish, criticize, or thrash their kids to solve problems. In fact, those strategies, while sometimes successful in the short-term, serve only to make everyone feel lousy. It's hard to argue with her.

But that doesn't mean parents should cower in the background and let the kids get away with murder. Kurcinka is all for standards, consistency, consequences, and, when warranted, a firm but gentle touch and tone of voice. Since she's a mother of two herself, she's also acutely aware that parenting is a work in progress, requiring constant practice. It's all about improvement, she says, not perfection. Everyone, she insists, has "bad parent days."

My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the tone of the text can seem a little cheerleaderish at times. Maybe there are just a few too many exclamation points for my taste. A case in point: "Emotion coaching is allowing you and your child to be more caring, competent, and connected, and together you are winning for a lifetime!" But such annoyances are a small price to pay for a text full of practical tools and techniques that can make a difference to a family's quality of life -- every day.

The bottom line? Do yourself a favor: Pick up a copy of Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles, and save the combat fatigues for the dress-up box.

-- Sarah Henry is an award-winning health writer specializing in parenting and social issues. She was a staff writer for the Center for Investigative Reporting for more than a decade, and has also reported on health issues for Hippocrates, Time Inc. Health, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and for television programs such as "60 Minutes" and PBS's "Health Quarterly."

First published March 15, 2002
Last updated July 23, 2007
Copyright © 2002 Consumer Health Interactive

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