When the Parent Bloggers Network asked me to review Mama Rock’s Rules I was a little apprehensive because I am not a fan of parenting books. I decided to try it out because I am a big fan of Rose Rock’s son, Chris Rock. What I discovered was not a book filled with sassy humor and stories, but a wonderful collection of great parenting advice.

My problem with other parenting books is their need to promote their rules by knocking down others. My parenting style is not scripted and certainly not found in any one book, but is an accumulation of my own experiences as a kid, things I’ve picked up along the way, and decisions I’ve made with Heather when discussing the best way to raise our children.

Mama Rock’s Rules is not a checklist of parenting rules you must follow, but a collection of advice and techniques of a mother who raised 10 kids plus 17 foster children in addition to being a school teacher. The book is broken into small bite sized sections that make it perfect for parental reading when you sometimes only have a few minutes at a time. Many of her lessons were what I would call ‘common sense’, meaning that I would either find myself nodding in agreement for something I was already doing or shaking my head in disbelief for something obvious that I had not thought of.

Here are a few of her rules that really struck home with me:

• Warnings May Be Bad for Your Health
  This one is a pet peeve of mine, but I sometimes find myself doing it and always regret it. Warnings used at threats are ineffective. Kids just learn that they can ignore them until you get real mad. Instead, Mama Rock says to lay the rules, let the kids know the rules, and enforce the rules.
• Catch Your Kid Doing Something Good
  Mama Rock stresses the importance of instilling self-confidence and self-reliance in your children. The best way to reward them for this is to give them the freedom to make their own decisions, but keep an eye on them and let them know when they’ve done something great or make a good decisions. For me, this really hits home with sports. When Ethan is playing hockey, I am off the clock. I watch him and his coaches so I can talk to him about practice later. I cheer for him and all the kids. I do NOT yell instructions or tell him to skate faster or pay attention. This is his time and I want him to focus on his coaches and his teammates, not me. I’ll go over to him during games to give him his water bottle and a thump on the helmet to tell him he’s doing great, but otherwise I keep a respectable distance. When Ethan first started sports he was incredibly shy and would not want to leave the sidelines, but now he is interacting with his teammates, learning from his coaches, and having lots and lots of fun.
  After games I make sure to ask him what his favorite part was and what his best play of the game was. He’ll now ask me the same. Which way will a kid be more likely to listen to your advice: If you yell it from the sideline or they ask you for it afterwards?
• You Can Always Count on Comic Books
  Here’s a tip that caught me by surprise. Mama Rock emphasizes the importance of reading, but she also emphasizes the importance of keeping it fun. She used comic books as an example of a great tool to get and keep kids reading. Some people turn their noses up at comics, but, as she explains, they are often great stories and the artwork keeps the kids interested as well as helps them learn new vocabulary. This gave me flashbacks to my childhood when my friends and I would trade comics and discuss our favorites in middle school. While I sometimes didn’t have the time to pick up a book, I always would grab a comic for a quick read.
• Join the Congregation of Expectations
  Mama Rock emphasizes the importance of discussing what type of behavior is expected of your child BEFORE you go into the grocery store, restaurant, friend’s house, etc. Keep the expectations realistic, spell out the rules, and be prepared to enforce them. We take our kids out a lot and for the most part they always behave really well, but this little tip is so damn logical. How fair is it to your child to take them into a restaurant and expect model behavior when they do not know what behavior is expected of them. By the time they are getting restless in the restaurant it is often too late. I’ve started doing this with the boys and I see it working.
• Embrace the “H” Word
  As in homework. This was something we lucked into with Ethan. When he was three he always heard his uncles talking about homework so he thought it was something the cool older kids did. Since then he always has his “homework” that he works on. He’ll grab a pad of paper and a pencil and eagerly jump into bed at night and work on a drawing. As he’s gotten older we’ve incorporated learning letters and words. To him, this is a fun and rewarding activity.
  Mama Rock talks about the importance of setting up a work area for the kids and making yourself available to them. Her example is having her kids works on their homework in the kitchen while making dinner. While visiting my mom a few weekends ago I set Ethan up with a pencil and paper while I prepared lunch. I told him to pick a word and I would tell him how it is spelled. He didn’t hesitate to pick big words and I would tell him how it was spelled letter by letter and he wrote the words and drew a corresponding picture for each one.

Mama Rock’s Rules is filled with great advice such as this. I was originally planning on passing the book on to a friend after I had finished, but now I plan to leave it on the bookshelf and remove from time to time because I’m sure I’ll find another rule to help me as the kids get older.