Unfortunately I do not recommend 1-2-3 Magic as I felt the book was more about punishment than discipline. This in turn would not help form a good relationship between parent and child. I have therefore rated the book a 2 stars.

I've read a lot of parenting books and, while this one wasn't terrible, what I didn't love was it comes across as a one-size-fits-all solution that does not take into account (enough, in my opinion) the underlying causes of misbehavior (or acting out, disrespect, power struggles, etc.). I was happy to see some content at the end addressing more underlying concerns, but I would have like some of that to be woven into the overall narrative, as a reminder that our children are complex and cannot be controlled by one simple strategy.

I think there is a time and place for the 1-2-3 strategy to be implemented; however, it is scary for me to imagine parents who apply it in a vacuum, and do not pay attention to the nuances of children's behavior. I am not surprised that the author has seen some success with the strategy. But, I wonder how deep the learning for children is and how enriched the parent-child relationship would be just implementing this idea.