Logical Consequences

by Rudolf Dreikurs, Loren Grey

In this classic guide, an eminent child psychiatrist provides creative and flexible strategies for dealing with every key problem parent and child will encounter. Based on a commonsense program of discipline and love, this remarkable book outlines practical guidelines for teaching children that with freedom comes responsibility. Parents will learn the difference between discipline and punishment, how to establish rapport and authority, why the reward system doesn't work, and how to teach children the consequences of their behavior. Plus all the sound advice and reassurance you need to put the joy back in parent-child relationships.

Genres: Psychology, Parenting

Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Rudolf Dreikurs was an Austrian psychiatrist and educator. He emigrated to the United States in 1937, in order to escape Nazi persecution, because of his jewish background. Dreikurs became a professor of psychiatry at the Chicago Medical School in 1942.

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, if you want to learn some positive and very easy parenting techniques, read about using logical and natural consequences rather than punishment, which has been proven to be relatively ineffective and sometimes very damaging in the long term.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finding my New York State Master's Degree worthless in Illinois except, after taking the civil service examination, for jobs as a prison or state mental hospital psychologist, both of which involved abhorent coercive practices, I fell into being a childcare worker for adolescent boys who had been diagnosed as psychotic. With few exceptions, they weren't. Most were the victims of poverty and dysfunctional families.

For a year starting in 1978 I worked for the Jewish Children's Bureau in Chicago. Initially, I had a boss, but she had a nervous breakdown and I served as the head of our Chicago group home until a new boss, Marilyn Balaban, was hired. She didn't work out so far as the agency was concerned and was "let go", as they say, during the summer break.

Sometime during that summer I got a call from Balaban inviting me to come to the Mission of Our Lady of Mercy (aka Mercy Mission), a much larger residential program which owned its own school, The Angel Guardian Center, both located in Chicago. I had liked her and so changed jobs, taking with me one of the guys I had hired at the JCB.

The Mission had dozens of kids ranging 13-21 years of age, though those in the 18-21 transitional program were in another program. Our part of the operation consisted of Balaban, several childcare workers and two psychiatric social workers, recent graduates of the Alfred Adler School downtown. Balaban and the social workers instituted Adlerian practices at the Mission and trained us to employ them with the kids and teach them to their parents.

The first book we had to read was Logical Consequences by Rudolf Dreikurs. More were to follow. The beauty of Dreikurs' Adlerian approach was its explicit avowal of an intention to promote democratic, cooperative values. The key to this, simply stated, was to involve the kids in group decision-making as regards the rules of the institution. Rules had reasons, the reasons were entirely public and breaking the rules had proportionate consequences.

It worked very well and I've recommended Dreikurs to parents and teachers ever since.

[Jennifer Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a newish mother, with just one 2 or 3 year-old, and a baby. At the time my oldest was driving me nuts. This book helped me put a lot of things in perspective parenting-wise, helped me know that I wasn't the first to go through the struggles of having a willful child, and helped me figure out how to discipline with greater thought and less knee-jerk reaction. Hmm. Maybe I should read it again now that I have 5 kids ... Really useful for me at the time I read it. It helped guide my parenting style ever since.

[Remlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book (my Mom told me about it, she read it when we were kids). It think it's a great approach.

[Lamberix Masengesho]

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