Carissa Van Bogelen’s Reviews > Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline: The 7 Basic Skills for Turning Conflict into Cooperation > Status Update

"you only aggravate yourself if you cling to the belief that through better handling of discipline, your child will always comply"

"it's our willpower that allows us to overcome obstacles and propels us toward our dreams. Do you often find you cannot resist, chocolate, shopping, or coffee? Do you have trouble keeping commitments when you have made them to yourself? If you do, you are probably still attaching negative motives to your actions. As a result, you view yourself as incapable of and unequal to the tasks life presents."

"this submission, diminishes marks, willpower, the same willpower he will later need to resist dangerous peer pressure. It is the same willpower. He will need to say yes to healthy risks, and the willpower. We lack when we try to improve our habits, but failed to do so."

"most of you reading this book we're probably good little girls or boys; you submitted. Sadly you're probably still defending yourselves as adults against being wrong bad or stupid. Most of us do this through trying to be perfect or through other compulsive, addictive behaviors."

"you cannot be assertive if you think a lot about what others think of you. Nor can you be assertive if you fret about what somebody will do or say in response to what you might do or say. To be assertive, you must concentrate on your own actions instead of focusing on what someone else might be thinking about them"

i'm already exhibiting ✨passive✨ behaviors

im giving up: "always try to accomodate others so they will like you" and adopting: "you have a right to say no"
im giving up: "if you are criticized, you have been rejected as 'not good enough'." and adopting: "you have a right to hear feedback and to filter out that which is of no value to you."

"Monitor your own thought patterns. How do you talk to yourself? Do you focus on what you want to do or what you haven't done? Do you address yourself, passively aggressively, or assertively? Once you learn to talk to yourself more assertively, you will naturally use this skill with your children."