Book Review: Love and Respect In the Family

Love & Respect in the Family: The Transforming Power of Love and Respect Between Parent and Child by Emerson Eggerichs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a spin off of the Love and Respect in marriage book. The premise as applied to the family is that kids need love and parents need respect.  The main points of the book make sense, though i don't really see myself sitting down and explaining the cycle to my kids as the book suggests.  For me, this book is better used as a reminder that i need to love my kids unconditionally and not react to their misbehavior in inappropriate ways.  It is an attitude check for me.  I think most kids know that parents expect respect and it seems unncecessary to have "the discussion" about it.  My favorite parts of the book were the chapters towards the end.  The author uses the acronym GUIDES to present the six ways of Godly parenting which i agree with.  If you want a book to tell you what to do in certain situations, this is not the book for you.  The book more presents general guidelines, even in the D section which is about discipline.  Chapter ten, about teamwork is a powerful chapter.  The author talks about the most important relationship in the family- the marriage!  He says that the relationship that most impacts the family is the parents relationship with each other.  He encourages parents to work as a team when parenting, and to put the marriage relationship first.  i agree that this is a vital point that so many parenting books don't even touch on.  The book also includes a chapter on "Parenting pink and blue" where the author discusses the differences when parenting boys and girls.  He suggests that boys need respect and girls need love reinforced in their interactions (just as men need respect and women need love with respect to the marriage relationship).  My husband and I found this book to be so true in our marriage, and it is interesting to see how it begins to play out at a young age as well. The part that was most convicting for me however, was in the section 3 about the family rewarded cycle.  The book discusses how parenting is more about our relationship with Christ, and having the right attitudes and responses because of our faithfulness to Christ and not necessarily because of how our children behave and respond to us.  It talks about how sometimes we get our self worth from how our kids behave (or misbehave!) when it should come from our worth as a child of God.  One particularly good quote was where the author states that our kids don't cause us to sin in our responses, rather they reveal the sin in us.  My takeaway from this book is most from those last few chapters- if I am having such a difficult time with remaining calm and loving, then my faith is not where it needs to be and I need to lean more on Christ and firm up my faith.  I would recommend this book to all Christian parents, and strongly encourage that you read through to the end, even if the first few chapters don't speak to you.  THe best in this book is at the end!

I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.


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