Shantelle Bisson Tells Us About Her New Book ‘Raising Your Kids Without Losing Your Cool’

Showbiz Cheat Sheet chatted with Shantelle Bisson, author of the book Raising Your Kids Without Losing Your Cool. Here’s what she had to say.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet: What inspired you to write this book?

Shantelle Bisson: My inspiration to write my book Raising Your Kids Without Losing Your Cool is multi-faceted:

1. I always had so much respect for my mother growing up.  She came from a strict European household who immigrated to Canada with her and her siblings when they were very young. I watched as she grew up to be an adult while raising three kids and dealing with my dad, who was also young, and an alcoholic. 

2. I implemented a lot of what she did as a mom raising me into raising our girls. Like any of us who become parents, we keep some stuff and throw other stuff away. When my husband and I joined a non-denominational church in 1992, we gleaned a lot of wisdom from the congregation on how to be a strong couple and build a solid family foundation. So, our “old fashioned” tried-and-true parenting techniques made it into this book.

3. All our friends started having kids of their own! This combined with watching our youngest grow up, she’s 24, and witnessing the massive difference in parenting involvement with their kiddos for her generation.

Watching as parents simultaneously smothered their children via helicopter parenting, as they overprogrammed them while also neglecting them, by putting them in front of devices for hours on end. I knew I had to step in and share that there is another way to do the parenting thing without losing your cool. 

CS: How can you keep your cool when your kids are constantly testing you?

SB: In my opinion, the larger issue here is that as a parent you have allowed this to become a pattern in your child’s behavior. So, my recommendation is that you and your partner have a meeting about how you’re going to change this behavior. What consequence are you going to set up in your family environment to teach your child that this behavior is unacceptable?

It can be as simple as taking away time from watching television/playing video games or being on their devices. Start small. Take away 10 minutes from their total allowed time, if the behavior remains unchanged, then up the ante, and add more time. Eventually, your child will understand that you mean business and the behavior will stop. 

Communicate clearly your disappointment, your new expectation and what the consequence will be if they continue carrying on this way.  Having it all laid out definitely helps remove a lot of the upset around dealing with it.

CS: What do you want readers to take away from this book?

SB: My book focuses on preparing for parenthood. From the minute you find yourself pregnant, or expecting via adoption or surrogacy, it’s a straightforward no-nonsense handbook about how to get through all the stages up until your child hits double digits.

It’s written conversationally, as if you’re sitting there having a chat with a good girlfriend, after a couple of glasses of wine. So, it’s got a bit of sass, and a lot of humor. Because if you can’t laugh while you’re raising your kids then it’s going to be a long road. Keep it simple. 

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