1-2-3 Magic by Thomas W. Phelan I am always suspicious of parenting books that say, “If our method doesn’t work for you, you’re not following the instructions correctly.” Different kids work very differently. At any rate, this is a punishment-based book. Your kids are out to get you, says Phelan, and you’d better punish them quickly before they get out of hand. Don’t talk to them, because kids aren’t capable of reasoning. The only punishment he offers is the time-out, a popular one to be sure, but ineffective for some kids, and emotionally difficult for others. This emphasis on instant obedience without understanding seems geared to produce adults who can say they’re “just following orders”. After you’ve gotten the worst of their bad behavior out of them, you can start using some rewards and praise to encourage good behavior, and then you might actually start to like your kids. The author appears to be a pediatrician who leaves most of the actual kid-rearing to his wife, and this book is based on his experience with patients who have followed his advice and come back and said that it works. There’s a lot of research out there on discipline techniques and their effect on child behavior and psychology, but Phelan doesn’t reference or appear to have read any of it. He is also very rigid, saying, for example, that there is no excuse for parents and children to be in the same bed together ever, even in cases of nightmares, illness, or thunderstorms.

This is an enormously popular book, though. It seems to me that the appeal is primarily that he offers one simple solution to the difficult problem of parenting. Also, the idea that kids are primarily savages with no naturally good impulses who need to suffer when they do something wrong is pretty deeply held in our society. Phelan’s approach appeals to that by telling parents that they can be in control, even though their kids really are out to get them. The best I can say about it is that it is consistent and avoids yelling and hitting. From my own experience, the little of Phelan’s style that has crept into my own since reading his book has made me less patient and everyone in our household less happy.