A few years back I wrote about the Yellow Car Syndrome over at one of my t’other blogs. Yes, plural.  As in, many.
In that instance it was about the subjects of a running book.  Today I want to revisit the theme, but on a parenting front.

Back in June I wrote about my meanderings through a change in parenting style from command and control to a more respectful and peaceful type.  It should have come as no surprise to me that I would begin to spot those ideas everywhere now that I have embraced them as my guide.  But it did.

A short digression.  I have taken up a sabbatical from BookFace.  I needed to.  The support groups are fabulous, but a serious time-stealer.  So I am currently in time-recovery mode.
My point is this… what do I do with my recovered time?  Amongst other things, I plan to read.  Books.  Blogs.  My university course textbook.  <<aargh>>

So today I picked up where I had long ago left off in my blogosphere of reading and started with a perennial favourite, but lately ignored, Zen Habits.  Never been to hear from Leo before?  You really should visit, there’s bound to be some pearls of wisdom you can pick up.

I made my way through a few of the recent posts until I hit on Parental Zen: How to Keep Your Cool as a Parent, and lo and behold, my Yellow Car Syndrome strikes again.

There, repeated for my pleasure, are many of the tenets that I am trying to put in to practice in my own home.  I love his first point, It’s not about you.

We parents tend to take kids’ bad behavior personally, as if what they’re doing is a personal attack on us or our belief systems, a personal offense. That’s why we get mad.

And there are plenty more, succinctly put points that had me nodding to myself all the way through.  And being a bit of a part-time geek-on-the-side, I particularly loved the Star Wars reference around guidance rather than dictatorship.

Imagine being Yoda (the mentor) instead of Darth Vader (the death-grip dictator).

If you were even a smidgen intrigued by the idea of a gentler, but still effective, style of parenting then this is a nice entry post for that.