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Product Description: Toddlers can drive you bonkers…so adorable and fun one minute…so stubborn and demanding the next! Yet, as unbelievable as it sounds, there is a way to turn the daily stream of “nos” and “don’ts” into “yeses” and hugs…if you know how to speak your toddler’s language. In one of the most useful advances in parenting techniques of the past twenty-five years, Dr. Karp reveals that toddlers, with their immature brains and stormy outbursts, should be thought of not as pint-size people but as pintsize…cavemen.
Having noticed that the usual techniques often failed to calm crying toddlers, Dr. Karp discovered that the key to effective communication was to speak to them in their own primitive language. When he did, suddenly he was able to soothe their outbursts almost every time! This amazing success led him to the realization that children between the ages of one and four go through four stages of “evolutionary” growth, each linked to the development of the brain, and each echoing a step in prehistoric humankind’s journey to civilization:
• The “Charming Chimp-Child” (12 to 18 months): Wobbles around on two legs, grabs everything in reach, plays a nonstop game of “monkey see monkey do.”
• The “Knee-High Neanderthal” (18 to 24 months): Strong-willed, fun-loving, messy, with a vocabulary of about thirty words, the favorites being “no” and “mine.”
• The “Clever Caveman” (24 to 36 months):
Just beginning to learn how to share, make friends, take turns, and use the potty.
• The “Versatile Villager” (36 to 48 months): Loves to tell stories, sing songs and dance, while trying hard to behave.
To speak to these children, Dr. Karp has developed two extraordinarily effective techniques:
1) The “fast food” rule—restating what your child has said to make sure you got it right;
2) The four-step rule—using gesture, repetition, simplicity, and tone to help your
irate Stone-Ager be happy again.
Once you’ve mastered “toddler-ese,” you will be ready to apply behavioral techniques specific to each stage of your child’s development, such as teaching patience and calm, doing time-outs (and time-ins), praise through “gossiping,” and many other strategies. Then all the major challenges of the toddler years—including separation anxiety, sibling rivalry, toilet training, night fears, sleep problems, picky eating, biting and hitting, medicine taking — can be handled in a way that will make your toddler feel understood. The result: fewer tantrums, less yelling, and, best of all, more happy, loving time for you and your child.
From the Hardcover edition. Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-22
Book does not get to the point
Book does not get to the point. Book goes on and on about useless stuff. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-21
Advises locking your child in bedroom - fire hazard!!!
Save your money! What a bunch of bunk!! On top of this the author advises to lock the child in the bedroom if there are issues when putting them to bed, major issue if a fire happens, not to mention abusive to the child!
Also I do not like the fact that the author refers to children as "chimps", offensive! Rating: 
Date: 2008-05-04
Not what I expected
Although there were some good ideas in this book, I found comparing a child to a 'neanderthal'and all the prehistoric parenting talk (as if we are training chimps) a bit disconcerting. I also didn't care for suggestions to use 'magic words, magic or invisible protective suits, magic water, secret super spray, talismans, etc"., as a means of calming bedtime fears. The author tells us to 'growl' at our prehistoric toddlers to show them we mean business. He even suggests learning to growl convincingly by practicing in the mirror. Neither we or our children are animals. We are people, made in the image of God. We don't need pagan rituals (offering cookies to the smoke detector alluded to in the book), magic of any type, or animal training techniques to raise our children. I find much of this book ludicrous to say the least. Rating:
Date: 2008-05-04
Monkey see monkey do!
This book is the strangest book on childcare I've ever read. Monkeys and cavemen, I wonder how Nanny 911 would handle Dr. Karp and his children in his home. I guess it's how one believes if we came from Adam and Eve or monkeys. I'm having problems with his approach, if the ideas presented in his book create the kind of relationship I would desire to have with my children. Rating: 
Date: 2008-03-18
It works
After using the suggestions in this book, my 18 month old goes quietly to bed. Before, he would yell and scream until we were a bag of nerves.
It is like a miracle! |
