1-2-3 Magic

I have had several people recommend the book 1-2-3 Magic. It's a book about disciplining your children. I am almost done reading it and I'm impressed with the ideas so we have started implementing them in our house as of a couple of days ago. My big goal with this system is to change the way I parent more than change the kids behavior. I too often respond to my kids bad behavior with bad behavior of my own and both child and parent engaging in a temper tantrum is far from helpful. The key rule for me from this book is the No-Talking/No-Emotion rule. You give ONE short explanation of required behavior and that's all you get. There is no reasoning, no engaging in debate, no lecturing, no yelling, no emotions, etc. When the kids are engaging in a behavior you went them to stop (fighting, whining, teasing, etc.) you "count" them. The kids have to the count of 3 (you give 5 second, silent pauses in between the counts,) at which point you send them to a time out or follow through with whatever other consequence you said would occur. There is no other talking to them involved. You simply give them the chance to stop and if they don't they go to time out, again with no theatrics from you. When they come out you still don't talk about it, you just move on. When there is a behavior you want them to start doing (clean, do homework, etc.) you set up a motivation (a timer, a reward or consequence at the end, etc.) and then you leave them alone. If they do it as they are supposed to then great, if not they miss the reward or have the consequence. But there is no nagging, yelling, talking allowed on your part. Again, you put the responsibility squarely on their shoulders to do it or not. The good, no more yelling parents, the bad, there will be a consequence consistently every time they don't behave. And the consequences are generally mild, unless something stronger is called for. You just want to disrupt the negative behavior and give them a chance to try again. As the book says, it's like your training wild animals, you're not dealing with little adults. I have tried so many times to overcome my temper when it comes to disciplining the kids. I am really hoping that by having it built into a system like this I can finally be successful!! Wish me luck, and check out the book if you think it sounds interesting.