Always a bit of a struggle as an engineer who is always searching for the solution and has a trained approach to debugging. Some just don't want to try something new for fear it won't work or that it isn't the preferred approach. This is most people I feel.

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to try this book. My 5 yr old likes to be read to, but sternly refuses to attempt to read words. Also montessori. He likes some mobile games which have menus so I'm going to explain why we are doing it but also position this book as a way so he can read menus in games so he knows how to play. And then I'll reinforce that when he asks me to read any menus/storylines in the games by going through the phonetic process and challenging him.

> Frankly I don't think she's still completely convinced, but I refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch my kids not be able to read.

I had a similar situation where I had a thesis on my child's behavioral health concern. Saw a neurologist and she confirmed exactly what I said. Wife was STILL not convinced and even criticized the neurologist's evaluation. But our kid improved after I disclosed the neurologist's evaluation to my sis in law and told them we need them to move out. They had been staying with her family in my house for a year and my wife had been watching their kid. Problem solved. Case closed. My wife wanted to help her sis so much that she was refusing to see the damage the situation was causing.

I also had to take matters in my own hand with getting kids to be sleep trained. Wife refused to do cry it out and we just kept struggling and getting no sleep over and over and kids weren't getting quality sleep. I'll get onboard a plan but if it doesn't work, I'm not going to continue to stay on that path.

I told her I'd handle it and then boom, got them trained in a few days. Not fun at ALL, but all these industries and philosophies take over and push it out there as the new one true way when we have hundreds or sometimes thousands of years of success in various things that work lol.

This is not unique of course. We see this in engineering all the time. Until the tried and true disciplines prevail. And the ones that care about what works best for the context, rather than what is popular at the time are the ones with less stress/anxiety.

I've seen family members say - oh cry it out is stressful for the child and creates distrust. Meanwhile, both partners get no sleep, project their stress and frustration and even end up yelling at their child because of it! Their spousal relationship suffers big time too. Makes no sense to me. Also the same ones who try to optimize everything for their child according to modern parenting philosophies are the ones who have completely unhealthy marriages in my experience. In my opinion, the best thing you can do for your kids is to just show them how to treat and love your spouse and do things that take care of yourself and your spouse so you can be great parents. If you try to do everything according to what is popular at the time, you're going to have a bad time. You need the oxygen mask so you can help your dependents.

Or you have parents who refuse to do cry it out and say - oh I couldn't get baby down last night, had to hold them on my chest and sleep in a chair. Utter madness. Don't do that. They will now be used to your warm embrace and heartbeat and they will never be able to sleep normally in their bed. Well... until you do some form of cry it out lol.

Most things really aren't that hard or frustrating unless you create and foster an environment that makes them so.

end rant