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The Parent Leader Series · Book 3

Before You Answer

The Two Seconds That Decide How the Evening Goes, Through the Slow Answer Method

You cannot make yourself calm. You can make yourself slow. That difference is the whole book.

Between what your child does and what you say, about two seconds pass. Almost every parenting regret you have was manufactured inside them. The advice you have been given so far asks you to be calmer or firmer, and both are things to be rather than things to do, and neither is available at six o'clock on a Thursday when the surge is already in your throat. This book assumes you are not calm, because on the evenings that matter you will not be, and gives you ten rules that work anyway.

Inside this book

  • Go second: three seconds before you answer, and one prepared holding sentence for when silence is not an option
  • Lower, slower, shorter: three adjustments to your voice that work while you are still furious
  • Name the weather, not the child, and why I am angry passes while you are impossible gets filed
  • Why nothing is learned during a storm, and why afterwards can be tomorrow
  • How to separate the rule from your mood, so consequences stop depending on how tired you were
  • The repair: four sentences, no forgiveness requested, and why it matters more than never losing your temper

Losing your temper is not the failure state. Not coming back afterwards is.

Author
Marcus Fenley
Series
The Parent Leader Series · Book 3
Written for
Parents of children aged 2–12
Editions
Paperback · Hardcover · Kindle
Trim size
6 × 9 in
Publisher
Tsunami Reading