cover image Jo Frost’s Toddler Rules: 
Your 5-Step Guide to Shaping Proper Behavior

Jo Frost’s Toddler Rules: Your 5-Step Guide to Shaping Proper Behavior

Jo Frost. Ballantine, $16 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-345-54238-0

Frost (Ask Supernanny), star of ABC’s Supernanny and now TLC’s Family SOS with Jo Frost, sets down the rules for raising toddlers in her latest effort, addressing such topics as “Disciplined Parenting vs. Punishing”; “The Rules for Shaping Good Behavior”; and “Taming Tantrums,” including situation, emotional, and “mock.” Though Frost takes a no-nonsense approach, she explains that discipline differs from physical punishment and strongly opposes spanking. However, according to Frost, even toddlers need to learn how to behave properly—“naughty” is defined as unacceptable, defiant behavior that a child engages in even after understanding the rules. She admits that her use of the word may ruffle a few feathers, but maintains that it’s appropriate to explain to a child that an action is wrong without judging his character. In addition to the “Naughty Step” (a modified time out), she presents a wealth of other pithy techniques, many brilliantly named (“Off the Hip Technique,” “Roaming Technique,” “The Chimes Technique”). Frost gives parents strategies to use in almost any situation, called “SOS” (Step Back, Observe, Step In), which she applies in sections covering sleep, food, socialization, early learning, and good behavior. Pragmatic but compassionate, Frost proves once again that she has an extraordinary gift for pinpointing and resolving the struggles of parents and children. Agent: Yfat Reiss Gendell, Foundry Media. (Mar.)