Cred

“When you don’t get what you want, what you get is called experience.”

 
A big concern in deciding to codify my parenting tricks—system, that is—was why would a stranger trust me to try any of my diabolical methods?  “Raising kids is serious.  Who is this clown?”  Especially since some techniques are so subversive, why would a reader try them, because I say so? 

For credentials, growing up with four siblings in an intact family and becoming a divorced dad would not be enough.  Isn’t an expert supposed to have a professional degree?  Despite analytical thinking, I am no therapist or parentologist.  Then who am I to write the book on parenting, claiming guerilla cred no less? 

The simplest answer is that a smart idea speaks for itself like a new invention.  Spot a glass measuring cup for the first time, and you see a single easy-to-read tool to measure different amounts of liquid. When the invention is a clear improvement, you don’t ask about the inventor, you buy an extra for mom and dad. 

Another answer is experience.  I have a palette of special experience to draw on that you may not wish for yourself.  Tuition was paid in full.  If you are the sort that likes the background details, they are all there in Origins—The Birth of Guerilla Parenting.  

Guerilla Tip:  You know what experience is, don’t you?  When you don’t get what you want, what you do get they call experience.  My experience is a trial-by-fire childhood, raising three kids born within two years and a long but liberating divorce.  My career as a technical writer was built on the skill of analyzing and explaining things well.   

Deciding for Yourself
This system is made up of event-based rules that build to form an experienced-based system.  A completely fresh system that holds together.  The author has thought policies through to come up with an original brew.

The system will give you a fierce approach to the central issues you face as a parent—never attacking your kids, mind you, but the issues.  You will get to decide for yourself whether to draw the same conclusions from the same learning experiences.  So while every event was experienced exactly as described, that is no more than an opinion—you can take it or leave it and draw your own conclusions. 

Since every opinion is a viewpoint and not a fact by itself, you can always take it or leave it.  By contrast, every scientific study also draws a conclusion from the study, but then presents its conclusion as scientific fact.  Is a solid conclusion from a solid study a fact or an opinion?  It is actually an opinion, so you can take it or leave it.  Every scientific study produces an opinion, no more, no less. 

And there again, even the previous sentence is an opinion—so you can take it or leave it.  You get to decide for yourself. 

Guerilla Tip:  A family system is little more than one opinion built on another—so you can take it or leave it.  You get to decide for yourself when you see if it works for you.  Discard it if you can do better. 

With this system, you will not have to reinvent the wheel.  After you put in some early, heavy pedaling, you can do a fair amount of coasting, improvising, even wheelies, if you wish. 

First you can simulate these fresh-to-you but battle-tested techniques directly.  If it’s a war out there, and you might as well win it as lose it.  The war is you or your sanity, though, not you or your kids.  Before you know it, you will be inventing your own techniques based on what works in your setting and what does not.  Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, an inventive thinker on the challenges of the mind, called it borrowing the glasses of the therapist until clients are ready to use their own. 

Guerilla Tip:  Channel the guerilla persona whenever you need it, then find the bravery inside you.  

Your job is to empower your kids.  My job is to empower you.  The Guerilla parent is shrewd and nurturing, fun but in charge.  And everything gets explained.  

Guerilla Tip:  The more you empower your kids, the easier your job.  You learn to trust yourself trusting them, and all that trust is a beautiful thing. 

•  "I think it’s great. I love the presentation, the tone, and the wisdom in it."—Book developer Naomi Rose, Writing from The Deeper Self (essentialwriting.com).

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Money Back Guarantee ... to take the kids if the method fails you,
but only if you tried hard enough.  The right is
reserved to claim you have not tried hard enough.
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תֵּן לְחָכָם, וְיֶחְכַּם-עוֹד

Proverbs 9:9—Give to the wise, who may be wiser yet