The book itself is a collection of blog posts. There’s about 30 chapters, each one self-contained advice about how to address a certain aspect of raising a toddler. This is actually a great format for parents of toddlers. In that wide-eyed sleep-deprived state of pure stress, having a single short chapter to go to can be super helpful. Chapters range from how to deal with hitting, to food, to siblings. Some take the form of letters the author received, and her responses. Others are pure exposition.
While I found the specific solutions offered to be interesting and useful, what I really liked about the book was the underlying theory of child-rearing that each chapter instantiated. There’s a strong and coherent philosophy behind this book, and it’s only mostly similar to my intuitions after raising two toddlers.
I’d sum up the No Bad Kids philosophy as:
- parents need to be leaders, in the best sense of the word
- kids like boundaries, even if those boundaries causes them to have strong feelings
- respect kids exactly as much as you would respect an adult (presumably an adult you like)
- don’t expect more of kids than they’re able to give
Each of these guidelines is more controversial than it appears, and many popular child rearing books explicitly disagree with one or more of them. Some examples of advice I’ve been given that goes against these rules are:
- talk in third person to reinforce language acquisition
- push your kids beyond what they’re capable of, to help them develop new skills
- let your kids lead all activities
- and many more
One of the most thought-provoking pieces of advice from the book was around boundary setting and leadership. I’m used to letting my kids pretty much set the pace, and I’ll only redirect them if they’re doing something dangerous and destructive. This often means that they end up lollygagging, playing roughly with things, or screaming and shouting indoors. Since these things aren’t immediately dangerous or destructive, I’ll often let them keep going. My thought process is that if I let them set the pace, they’ll learn agency.
In the No Bad Kids paradigm, that’s exactly backwards. The idea is that I should be asserting specific and enforceable boundaries in those situations. Then if the kids don’t respect those boundaries, I physically stop the boundary from being crossed. An example would be taking toys away if they’re being used too roughly, or picking up the kiddo if they aren’t moving quickly enough towards the car.
I had been avoiding setting those boundaries because “it’s just my personal preference, they aren’t being dangerous” and “I want them to feel in control of their own life”. The problem is that I am a normal human person. Delays, broken toys, and constant loud noises can stress me out. If they just keep happening, my patience will wear thin. I have never blown up at my kid. What has happened is that I lose my cool and arguments turn into battles of will where I am stressed and frustrated.
No Bad Kids advises that I side-step that whole issue by setting boundaries for things I want, even if they aren’t safety issues. By setting boundaries earlier and enforcing them, I’m being respectful to my own preference and preventing myself from having to deal with things that try my patience. That’s good for my kids, because I then have enough patience to truly connect with them and be there with them. That connection is worth the temporary frustration they may experience when the boundary is asserted in the first place.
While this seems like it’s primarily an issue of leadership, it’s also an issue of respecting your kids like you would an adult. In general it’s best to assert boundaries with other adults early and clearly. We generally do this under the assumption that the adult will respect it and you won’t need to physically enforce it. This keeps the adult relationship healthy.
On the other hand, I know someone (an adult) who feels that asserting boundaries on other adults is rude. Instead of asserting the boundary, they’ll keep giving the other person a pass. This works right up until the point that my acquaintance loses their temper. Then they’ll cut the other person off from their life forever. Often the person being cut-off is surprised, because they never got any feedback that would imply they were even close to a boundary.
Imagine that situation, but instead of losing patience with an adult that you can cut off, it’s your own kid. You have to be there to support them, but suddenly you no longer even like them. That’s a nightmare scenario.
The other question is one of agency and leadership. The zeitgeist now (at least in my social circle) is for child-led parenting. Kids want to do X, we do X. Kids want to learn Y, we learn Y. Kids want to go at Z pace, that’s the pace we go at. The hope is that this teaches the child agency and gives them a sense of leadership in their own life. Won’t adding non-safety boundaries hem our child in and prevent agency from developing?
I think the key here is to separate agency from leadership. We want our kids to develop agency, but an agency that respects the autonomy and needs of others. By asserting boundaries, we are giving our kids safe regions to explore agency that everyone is comfortable with. Our leadership does not consist just in setting our own boundaries, it also consists of constructing environments for our kids that don’t tempt them outside of set boundaries. Hide the noisemakers, baby-proof the electrical outlets, put away delicate electronics. Then your kid can explore with full agency, without you constantly needing to say no.
This reminds me of leadership within companies as well. Managers want their reports to have agency. They want employees to be thinking of better ways to do things, solving problems early before they can grow large. In technical companies, managers want their employees to go out and learn what needs learning, not wait for the manager to intervene. That all needs to be done in a context that contributes to the team, which means employees need to respect the boundaries of others on their team and of the company as a whole.
I don’t always like corporate metaphors for family (in either direction), but this example helped me see how you could give your kids freedom and agency while still establishing your own boundaries.
So asserting boundaries earlier is critical. It gives parents the space they need to maintain sanity. It gives kids the leadership and guidance they need to understand their place in the world. How to do it, though?
No Bad Kids provides a few scripts for asserting these boundaries. For one thing, toddler attention can quickly shift to other things. You need to assert the boundary in the moment, or it gets much harder to communicate about. The book recommends that you notice when a boundary is about to be crossed, then simply say that you won’t let it happen. If necessary, do what it takes to interrupt.
One example is kids hitting their parents. If a kid tries to hit a parent, the parent can just say “I won’t let you hit me”. Then if the kid continues to hit, the parent can gently redirect the hands or hold them still. This avoids a lecture and confusing moralizing, and still communicates what the boundary is.
Of course, this requires the parent to know their boundaries well. You need to be able to respect your own needs, to articulate them simply, and to stand up for them. This is hard. Realizing this made me suddenly realize why people sometimes say they “aren’t mature enough for kids yet”. I had thought that excuse masked other feelings, but I now see the ways in which it can be straightforwardly literally true. That said, I also think kids give a great opportunity to learn those skills.
This book also renewed my appreciation for how much nuance there is in child rearing. A lot of advice sounds something like “respect the child” or “let the child lead the play”. Those are great in some situations and counterproductive in others. There is an underlying philosophy about what “respect” and “leadership” mean where the advice always makes sense. It’s not necessarily obvious though.
I often think that books for general audiences have too many anecdotes and examples. I want every book to be a math textbook. Give me the theory and the proof, and I’ll take it from there. With topics where people have an enormous amount of preconceived wisdom, I now see why anecdotes are so useful. They help the reader interpret “let the child be self-directed” in a way that doesn’t imply “don’t set any boundaries except for safety”.
While I think I’ve summarized the points of the book well here, I encourage people who are raising toddlers to actually go read the book to get the anecdotes.