in a New York Times article published last week called The Caveman in the Crib. The premise is that kids are like Neanderthals (sounds pretty accurate) and we can't use human ways to reason with them but rather need to come down to their level and talk like cavemen. The article is about Dr. Harvey Karp whose new book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block: The New Way to Stop the Daily Battle of Wills and Raise a Secure and Well-Behaved One- to Four-Year-Old teaches parents how to quell tantrums. The technique includes repeating your kids rants back at them which may leave you and your toddler both wailing 'no share toy' at a play date. While this may make you feel completely ridiculous, I think we all can agree that if it worked it would be worth it. I mean, I would be willing to do the Macarena while wearing lederhosen if someone told me it worked. The idea is that when they scream 'I want cookie' rather than calmly explaining why they can't have it, which proves to their little Neanderthal minds that you don't understand them and makes them yell even louder, you say 'you want cookie' over and over again. Once they realize you understand them they calm down and then you can try reasoning with them. I've tried it a few times and it works, my problem is that you need to know what to do next otherwise you just wind up giving them the cookie which probably would have stopped the tantrum in the first place. So I am ending my ban on reading baby books, after completely overdosing pregnancy and year one, to read this one and get the full story. Afterall, it makes sense that Dr. Karp figured out toddlerese, this is the master who brought us the 5 S's to calm even the most unsoothable baby??”if you don't know the 5 S's and have a baby you need Dr. Karp's first book, The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer, or better yet the DVD??”it is truly a life saver. And, if you buy your books at Amazon through the links in this post, you also support Mommy Poppins, what could be better?