Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages (Book Review)

 [This is part of the Virtual Book Tour for the launch of L.R.Knost's Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages. Click here if you’d like to check out all of the other stops on the tour!]

"So then, you will know them by their fruits." ~ Jesus (Mt. 7:20)

When I first began to research gentle parenting, I had two important questions: was it Biblical and did it work?  Studying the Proverbs passages in Hebrew and looking at the rest of the Bible as well as my own walk with Christ made it clear to me that this was what God was calling me and my family to do.  But I still wrestled with a few doubts--after all, I and nearly everyone that I knew had been parented with spanking, shaming and other adversarial parenting tools.  I could see some of the rotten fruit that had produced, but I wanted to know if the fruit of peaceful parenting was better.  

L. R. Knost, the author of Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages, has already seen that harvest.  In an interview for Gentle Christian Mothers, she describes the results of gentle parenting in her family: 

L.R. Knost: "My oldest two are, respectively, a happily married Pastor with two adorable children of his own and a happily married Family Therapist with a high-stress social services job working doggedly to protect children from the fallout of unfortunate parenting choices. My next oldest is graduating this year with a pre-med degree in BioMedical Sciences before heading into med school, but even with an incredibly tough university schedule he takes the time each week to go to a local teen hang-out spot and work in an outreach ministry he created and has been building for the last year. All of them, along with my younger children, have tender hearts that feel others’ pain and discouragement deeply, and all of them seek every opportunity to reach out with a helping hand, a kind heart, and a friendly smile."

This kind of thing makes me pay attention to the wise Titus 2 women who have something worthwhile to say about how to best love our families.  And what she has to say is delightful, both in content and style!

Two Thousand Kisses a Day strikes a wonderful balance in being informative and still easy to read for a parent with limited time.  The newborn section covers sleeping, breastfeeding and babywearing.  The toddler chapters deal with topics like sharing, potty learning, rejection of a parent and food issues, along with setting gentle limits.  I appreciated her perspective tremendously.

The subsequent chapters were especially interesting to me because I have not seen many resources that talk about attachment parenting in older children.  The preschooler section contained some must-read chapters, including my favorite of the whole book, My Little Caboose and the Very Bad, No Good...Month which is available online, as well as excellent articles on the problem with punishment, helping children cope with anxiety, delightful ideas for fun memories and dealing with mommy guilt.

The sections on middle childhood and teens are also helpful and full of wisdom and understanding, and the conclusion with 12 practical steps for month by month gentle parenting is beautiful.

I loved this book.  More than just the content, which was excellent, I loved what this book did in me as I was reading it.  I have read books by punitive authors such as Ezzo, the Pearls, Tripp and others who left me feeling at war with my children.  I would find myself being less patient, quick to anger and assigning evil intent to their motives.  In contrast, when I read Two Thousand Kisses a Day, I felt so light and loving.  Little love waves kept splashing on my family the whole day, and we all experienced more peace, joy, patience, kindness and self control.  That is the kind of fruit I want.

Note: Anyone who purchases the hard copy of the book by March 16th, 2013 can receive a FREE Kindle version of the book!   Don't miss the rest of the tour.  :)  Also, be sure and check out the Little Hearts blog and Facebook pages.   Seriously, y'all.  I have been blessed with access to a ton of wonderful parenting pages and I simply don't have time to stay caught up on all of them, but this is one I never want to miss because it ALWAYS refreshes my spirit.