Great video on raising happy kids by Dr. John Rosemond

By Tom Quiner

Parents have rights.

This was the mantra of child psychiatrist, John Rosemond. Dr. Rosemond was the child-rearing guru whom my wife and I leaned on while raising our kids.

Even though he lived in South Carolina, he had a weekly column in our newspaper back then. I was on a committee at my church that brought him out to speak sometime in the 80s. He packed the house.

His book, “Parent Power,” was our child-rearing bible. His premise: the relationship of mom and dad comes first; that when mom and dad have a loving, fulfilling relationship, everything else falls into place.

He talked about the need to say no to kids and teach them to delay gratification. His message then, as now, is counter cultural. He emphasized self-respect, not self esteem.

Self esteem is not something that can be imposed from without. It grows from within when a child does good things, when he has self-respect.

His message resonated because I grew up in such a house, blessed with a mom and dad who really, really loved each other, and were comfortable expressing and showing that love in front of their children.

I was happy to see that the prolific Dr. Rosemond is still vigorously promoting his philosophy. Watch the video above where he extols the virtue of ‘Vitamin N,’ which stands for NO.

Then share it.

Then buy one of his books. He’s written a bunch.