Amazon.com: Reviews for 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12: Books: Thomas W. Phelan:

36 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

[1 of 5 stars] I'd give it zero stars if that were possible, September 26, 2004
A Kid's Review
Hi, I am ten and I read this book in less than 2 hours. It was a very irritating book. The main idea is that children should do what their parents want all the time because "the parents are right". Always. Yeah right, nobody is always right. In fact, the fact that the parents brought another kid into a world that already has too many people is proof that they are pretty stupid (ever hear of adopting?) Okay, another idea of the book is that certain behavior should be squashed as soon as possible. This is stupid because it trains children to follow everything somebody says, blindly. When they grow up what are they going to do? Conform to anything if the person starts counting? I wonder how many parents realize that they are brainWASHING their kids to be Pavlovian dogs. Another idea of this book is that there are such things as bad words. This is pretty stupid. A word is a word and people that react to "swears" are hypocrites. The same adults that tell a kid not to swear watch TV shows full of swears. It is STUPID!!! I live in a foster home. My last foster parent read this book and tried to do it on ME because I am "argumentative" and got mad about having a babysitter (what for? I know how to dial 911, won't set a fire and can pretyt much do everything an adult can do included but not limited to driving)! So we would get in lots of arguments\. But then I tried doing the same things to hear and counting when she was acting unreasonable (like telling me I am too young to read Steven King books). Now I am in a new foster home (it was like magic, that part) where they encourage me to debate. I am now in the gifted program at school too. Brainwashing your kids to do what you want without thinking is the same sort of belief system that let the Nazis get off the ground in 1939. And we all know how that ended! CHILDREN ARE SPONGES SO PLEASE TEACH YOURS TO LEARN TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES AND RESPCT YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE WORTH RESPECTING, NOT BECAUSE YOU ARE OLDER AND PHYSICALLY STRONGER. Unless of course you want your kid to be so susceptible to "training" that they have breast implants at my age. My advice to parents is instead of trying to make your kid perfect without fights ( part of being a parent IS debating and encouraging discussion not squashing it by counting) is to stop smothering/overpretecting your kids and letting them find out for themselves what happens when they mess up. If you warn them first but dont restrict them, they then respect you for two reasons; being able to give good advice AND having enough courage in their (the kids) strength and intelligence not to make decisions. The only time I think a parent should interfeer is when there kid might die otherwise. I think the reaosn we have less existentialists these days is because children are programmed. Its probably the same reason we have less geniuses.

Remember, have respect for your kid and their intelligence and they will have respect for you and yours.

Jacob, age 10 for Mrs Corners grade 9 class in T.O., Canada