Review: Parenting with Kindness and Consequences by Barbara Frandsen

Parenting with Kindness and Consequences by Barbara Frandsen is a fascinating, detailed guide to parenting that blends the professional and the personal into one coherent vision. With a strong emphasis on how parents can help raise independent, mature, and self-assured kids, this is a timely book, passionately written, and full of real-world, practical advice.

The title posits the fundamental juxtaposition at the heart of the book, a dichotomy that turns out to be a false one: should parents emphasize the positive but risk spoiling them, or be willing to discipline but risk being too cold and harsh? This is a false choice, as Frandsen writes, “You will never spoil your newborn baby by loving her too much,” and goes on to detail her approach – rather than punish, what matters is connecting specific behaviors with specific consequences, helping to inculcate a sense of responsibility rather than culpability.

The book is exceptionally dense with information, covering a massive range of subjects and situations – from living around dangerous furniture to ways to help with dyslexia – interspersed with stories, anecdotes, and other real-life examples to illustrate the points being made. Structurally it is divided into seven sections, further subdivided into twenty-seven chapters, each of which in turn is comprised of several short, succinct treatments of the subjects under discussion. There are also helpful charts and other visual aids for presenting data or ideas.

The clear, easy-to-navigate structure of the book is very conducive to taking in its message, which is a fundamentally humane, sympathetic, and mindful approach to some of the thorniest issues in childrearing. The core message of the book is that there can be kindness in setting consequences – by raising children through calm understanding and empathy, the uniqueness of every child can be brought to the forefront, and the type of parenting will then follow. The book is not necessarily meant to be an instruction manual, as each child is different, but parents can use the information in the book to cater to the particular needs and idiosyncrasies of every child, for a unique approach that never relies on one size fits all.

The anecdotes are particularly fun and useful, illustrating the various real-world situations and tips for dealing with them, illuminating the trickiness of a circumstance or the effectiveness of a method in a different, more pragmatic way. This is not without its issues, however, as the book does somewhat rely on these personal narratives a little too much, while at times the writing style can wobble between scientific and informal in a way that feels more imprecise than natural.

These are small issues in the end, as the author’s credentials in childcare and child psychology give the book immense authority, where facts and actionable advice take center stage. Packed with academic references and personal reflections, with hard data and the intangible benefits of experience to back up each point, Parenting with Kindness and Consequences is an original and comprehensive guide to being a parent in the 21^st century.