Parenting Beyond Power

August 21, 2023
Your Parenting Mojo podcaster Lumanlan debuts with a mostly successful program on how to “move beyond traditional command-and-control parenting approaches like time-outs, punishments, and rewards.” She suggests that rewards reduce children’s intrinsic motivation to complete tasks and make it less likely they’ll continue to do so once parents stop doling them out. Instead, she urges parents to identify and address the roots of children’s undesirable behavior by talking with them about how they’re feeling. Examples from families Lumanlan has corresponded with show the advice at work, as when she illustrates the importance of making children feel heard by describing how a mother curbed her four-year-old son’s tantrums by telling him “she understood how hard it was” for him to have to share his mother’s attention with his older sibling. Passages proposing connections between control-based parenting and white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism are a bit garbled (it’s unclear, for example, why Lumanlan categorizes saying “I’m the parent; I know better than you” as white supremacist and “I’m in charge here” as patriarchal instead of vice versa), but the compassionate guidance will be a boon to parents eager to move away from punitive child-rearing strategies. This gives parents much to ponder.

September 1, 2023
Imagine a parenting book that does not promise parents solutions to getting their children to comply with their desired behaviors--that in fact advocates leaving that concept behind forever. In her debut, Lumanlan, founder of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, asserts that traditional parenting methods force children to neglect their own needs to satisfy the demands of a flawed society; when these children grow up to raise their own children, they repeat the process, and conflict ensues. Lumanlan offers tools for parents to evaluate the needs of both themselves and their children and techniques for families to reach solutions that respect everyone's desires. While the author blames most parenting issues on white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy, and promotes her own workshops, her strengths are defining key concepts and providing practical exercises and prompts to reshape parental thinking. Her guidance on building community and conversation-starting scripts is outstanding, supported by flowcharts to illustrate her approach and supplemented by useful lists and templates in the appendices. This will appeal to parents seeking alternatives to conventional child-rearing styles and advice.

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November 1, 2023

Lumanlan (host of the podcast Your Parenting Mojo) believes that self-reflection is a key to growing as a parent. Her book is for families with children under 10. She pays special attention to children who are neurodivergent. It particularly targets parents who are white; Lumanlan asserts that many of these readers will have entrenched beliefs, passed from generation to generation, about superiority or control over others. Her book addresses that by portraying systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism as having knock-on effects on parenting. Lumanlan says that society both rewards and punishes children into cooperation and advocates for a different model: listening to children with empathy and seeing the world through their eyes, looking at the big picture, and problem-solving together. This title also includes exercises for further reflection, an extensive appendix with additional resources, and sample scripts for difficult conversations. VERDICT A beneficial resource for many parents, but the sample scripts won't work for every situation.

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