Clean Your Plate! (13 Things Good Parents Say that Ruin Kids’ Lives) by Liz Bayardelle, Ph.D. is a thoughtful book on parenting. Parenting is a full-time job without leave, transfers, breaks, or paychecks. The highest and only reward that parents will get is seeing their kids thrive as successful, model adults. It begins with how they’re raised, and Liz, being a mother of three herself, draws from her wealth of experience to show parents a better and actionable model for raising kids. She implies that the advice given to kids by their parents is often in good faith, but it could ruin their lives. Hence, it isn’t about what we say, but how it’s said and applied. Where do we draw the line between being indulgent and overbearing as parents?

Our children often grow into adults who possess many of our traits. Also, sometimes when we advise our kids, we’re unconsciously projecting because we want to satisfy our desires through them. Therefore, I highly recommend Clean Your Plate! (13 Things Good Parents Say that Ruin Kids’ Lives) by Liz Bayardelle, Ph.D. to every parent. Liz has expertly navigated the thin line between doing too little and too much as parents. Two topics that grabbed my attention were “Don’t Talk Back” and “Don’t Hit.” These instructions are counterproductive because you may either be raising an emotionally subdued kid or one that will snap and go overboard at some point. I love how she handled these topics among others. I love this book because it is informative and encompasses all kinds of households!

When it comes to helping your child become a fully functioning and productive member of society, you may feel a bit out of your league. But then you see all of those parenting books that tell you just what to say and just how to raise your kids ‘the right way.’ But what if those parenting books are wrong? And what if you’ve been telling your kids the wrong things all this time? That’s exactly what Clean Your Plate by Liz Bayardelle is all about. It’s about helping you learn the skills and strategies that you need to help your children in the way that you wanted to in the first place but in the right way.

We tell our kids to never quit, to get straight A’s, to sit still, to not hit others and so many other things in the effort to turn them into good people. But the truth is, those things can do more harm than good if we’re not careful. Bayardelle focuses on the things that parents say (like Clean Your Plate) and the way that you could be influencing your child. But she doesn’t stop there. She also talks about why we say it, what we should be saying instead, and how we can foster the type of behavior we’re trying to get with that little statement in a more positive and productive way. That way, you can set them up for success that they find on their own, rather than pushing them down your own path for success.

Admonition and the ready giving of advice to our children tend to lie at the core of parenting for many of us. After all, we are (or, at least, think we are) so much more knowledgeable about life than they are. However, Clean Your Plate! 13 Things Good Parents Say that Ruin Kids’ Lives by Liz Bayardelle, Ph.D. shows how many of the statements that we make are often fallible and handed down from one generation to another without our giving much thought to whether such truisms are, in fact, still as valid as they once were (or seemed to be). In this guide to sage parenting, Bayardelle exposes the hidden illogicality of such warnings as “Don’t be a quitter,” “Waste not, want not” and “Sit still.”

I especially enjoyed the sane and reasoned logic of Liz Bayardelle’s text, blended with her strong sense of humor and perspective. Having three children of her own, in addition to her training, has rendered her an ideal voice for bringing us to our senses and for allaying our fears. Bayardelle’s heartfelt concern for the well-being of children was a paramount motivator for her to write Clean Your Plate! 13 Things Good Parents Say that Ruin Kids’ Lives, and one that I really appreciated. We have to steer a clear course between justifiable concern and over-the-top anxiety when it comes to parenting our kids. Bayardelle’s work strikes exactly the right balance to light the way forward for us to create a happy and joy-filled home environment so that we can help ensure both the mental and physical well-being of our children growing up.