Positive Parenting with a Plan (Grades K-12): FAMILY Rules by Matthew A. Johnson, 2/5

At first, I was put off by the author’s cocksure tone, cringey attempts at humor, and brazen assertion that common sense and anecdotal evidence are perfectly reasonable substitutes for scientific research with regard to his scheme of essentially gamifying family life. However, after reading a few of the aforementioned anecdotes, I learned that there is a level of family dysfunction that I simply was not even aware existed and might credibly justify the extreme approach that this book lays out. Call me naive, but I didn’t know that many children are so out of control that the only threat parents can effectively use is to literally send them away to live with other family members or at one of the numerous long-term treatment facilities that apparently are a thing that exists! In a situation in which, God forbid, my child was physically assaulting me, committing crimes, doing drugs, and causing thousands of dollars of property damage, I guess I would try anything, no matter how contrived, extreme, and unsupported by scientific research it might feel.

Why I read it: it was in a box of hand-me-down books from a friend.