The Scaffold Effect: Raising Resilient, Self-Reliant, and Secure Kids in an Age of Anxiety


Harold Koplewicz - 2021
    Siegel, MD, author of The Whole Brain ChildJust as sturdy scaffolding is necessary when erecting a building and will come down when the structure grows stable, good parenting provides children with steady and warm emotional nourishment on the path toward independence. Never-ending parental problem-solving and involvement can have the opposite effect, enabling fragility and anxiety over time.In The Scaffold Effect, world-renowned child psychiatrist Harold Koplewicz introduces the powerful and clinically tested idea that this deliberate build-up and then gradual loosening of parental support is the single most effective way to encourage kids to climb higher, try new things, grow from mistakes, and develop character and strength. Explaining the building blocks of an effective scaffold from infancy through young adulthood, he expertly guides parents through the strategies for raising empowered, capable people, including:- Lay a solid foundation: The parent-child relationship needs to be made from the concrete mixture of emotional availability, positive reinforcement, clear messaging, and consistent rules. From this supportive base, your will forge a bond that will survive adolescence and grow stronger into adulthood.- Empower growth: Skyscraper or sprawling ranch--the style of your child's construction is not up to you! Scaffold parenting validates and accommodates the shape the child is growing into. Any effort to block or control growth will actually stunt it.- Stay on their level: Imagine being on the ground floor of a house and trying to talk to someone on the roof. The person on the roof will have to "talk down" to you or yell. If your child's building and your scaffold are on the same level, you can speak directly, look each other in the eye, and keep the lines of communication open.Drawing on Dr. Koplewicz's decades of clinical and personal experience, The Scaffold Effect is a compassionate, street-smart, and essential guide for the ages.All of the author's proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Child Mind Institute.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook


Bruce D. Perry - 2007
    In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, he tells their stories of trauma and transformation through the lens of science, revealing the brain's astonishing capacity for healing. Deftly combining unforgettable case histories with his own compassionate, insightful strategies for rehabilitation, Perry explains what exactly happens to the brain when a child is exposed to extreme stress-and reveals the unexpected measures that can be taken to ease a child's pain and help him grow into a healthy adult. Through the stories of children who recover-physically, mentally, and emotionally-from the most devastating circumstances, Perry shows how simple things like surroundings, affection, language, and touch can deeply impact the developing brain, for better or for worse. In this deeply informed and moving book, Bruce Perry dramatically demonstrates that only when we understand the science of the mind can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child.

Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator


Ryan Holiday - 2012
    A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don't know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me.I'm a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs--as much as any one person can. In today's culture... 1) Blogs like "Gawker," "Buzzfeed" and the "Huffington Post" drive the media agenda. 2) Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines. 3) Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see and watch--online and off.Why am I giving away these secrets? Because I'm tired of a world where blogs take indirect bribes, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. I'm pulling back the curtain because I don't want anyone else to get blindsided. I'm going to explain exactly how the media "really" works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

Boundaries with Kids: When to Say Yes, When to Say No to Help Your Children Gain Control of Their Lives


Henry Cloud - 1998
    You want to see them take responsibility for their behavior, their values, their lives. But maybe you've discovered that simply telling them to "do the right thing" isn't enough. From toddler tantrums to teenage temptations, you've got to help them take ownership of their behavior, feelings, and attitudes. But how?Establish healthy boundaries. Boundaries are the bedrock of good relationships, maturity, safety, and growth for your children and for you.Boundaries With Kids will help you prepare your kids to assume the responsibility for their own lives. Drawing on principles from the Bible, the authors of the award winning best-seller Boundaries help you recognize the boundary issues underlying child behavior problems set boundaries and establish consequences with kids get out of the "nagging" trap stop controlling your child - and instead help your child to develop self-control apply ten laws of boundaries to parenting take six practical steps for implementing boundaries with your kids. Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend show you how to bring control to an out-of-control family life. How to set limits and still be a loving parent. How to define legitimate boundaries for your family. And above all, how to instill in your children the kind of godly character that is the foundation for healthy, productive adult living.

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids


Jancee Dunn - 2017
    After Jancee Dunn had her baby, she found that she was doing virtually all the household chores, even though she and her husband worked equal hours. She asked herself: How did I become the 'expert' at changing a diaper? Many expectant parents spend weeks researching the best crib or safest car seat, but spend little if any time thinking about the titanic impact the baby will have on their marriage - and the way their marriage will affect their child. Enter Dunn, her well-meaning but blithely unhelpful husband, their daughter, and her boisterous extended family, who show us the ways in which outmoded family patterns and traditions thwart the overworked, overloaded parents of today. On the brink of marital Armageddon, Dunn plunges into the latest relationship research, solicits the counsel of the country's most renowned couples' and sex therapists, canvasses fellow parents, and even consults an FBI hostage negotiator on how to effectively contain an "explosive situation." Instead of having the same fights over and over, Dunn and her husband must figure out a way to resolve their larger issues and fix their family while there is still time. As they discover, adding a demanding new person to your relationship means you have to reevaluate -- and rebuild -- your marriage. In an exhilarating twist, they work together to save the day, happily returning to the kind of peaceful life they previously thought was the sole province of couples without children. Part memoir, part self-help book with actionable and achievable advice, How Not To Hate Your Husband After Kids is an eye-opening look at how the man who got you into this position in this first place is the ally you didn't know you had.

The Case For Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World


Susan Linn - 2008
    Although play is essential to human development and children are born with an innate capacity for make believe, Linn argues that, in modern-day America, nurturing creative play is not only countercultural—it threatens corporate profits.A book with immediate relevance for parents and educators alike, The Case for Make Believe helps readers understand how crucial child’s play is—and what parents and educators can do to protect it. At the heart of the book are stories of children at home, in school, and at a therapist’s office playing about real-life issues from entering kindergarten to a sibling’s death, expressing feelings they can’t express directly, and making meaning of an often confusing world.In an era when toys come from television and media companies sell videos as brain-builders for babies, Linn lays out the inextricable links between play, creativity, and health, showing us how and why to preserve the space for make believe that children need to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives.

Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain


Sarah-Jayne Blakemore - 2016
    And yet, until very recently, scientists believed our brains were fully developed from childhood on. Now, thanks to imaging technology that enables us to look inside the living human brain at all ages, we know that this isn't so. Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, one of the world's leading researchers into adolescent neurology, explains precisely what is going on in the complex and fascinating brains of teenagers--namely that the brain goes on developing and changing right through adolescence--with profound implications for the adults these young people will become.Drawing from cutting-edge research, including her own, Blakemore shows:How an adolescent brain differs from those of children and adultsWhy problem-free kids can turn into challenging teensWhat drives the excessive risk-taking and all-consuming relationships common among teenagersAnd why many mental illnesses--depression, addiction, schizophrenia--present during these formative yearsBlakemore's discoveries have transformed our understanding of the teenage mind, with consequences for law, education policy and practice, and, most of all, parents.

Awaking Wonder: Opening Your Child's Heart to the Beauty of Learning


Sally Clarkson - 2020
    You want to develop a strong foundation for them. But in our fast-paced, outcome-based, technologically driven society, it's easy to lose sight of the innocence, potential, and uniqueness of each child. Childlike wonder can become lost in the fog of formulas that view children through the distorting lens of social expectations. Awaking Wonder helps parents unearth the hidden potential of their child's imagination, learning capacity, and ability to engage authentically with the world. Bestselling author Sally Clarkson will help you reach your child's heart of wonder through the principles that guided her in raising four children, all of whom made it into adulthood with a vibrant faith intact and are now flourishing in creative, high-performing professions. Through these pages you will- gain confidence in your role as a God-designed guide and teacher for your children- help your children awaken to the wonder all around them- develop healthy minds that can stand up against societal norms, providing them with a life-giving education and a love for learningThe companion guide, The Awaking Wonder Experience, will help readers apply the principles in practical ways.

For the Children's Sake


Susan Schaeffer Macaulay - 1984
    Everyone would like education to be a joyous adventure and celebration of life, as well as a solid preparation for living. Sadly, most education today falls far short of this goal.But as Susan Schaeffer Macaulay shows it doesn't have to be this way. Education can be a wonderful, life-enriching, joyous experience.For the Children's Sake is a book about what education can be--for your child, in your home, and in your school. It is based first on a Christian understanding of what it means to be human--to be a child, a parent, a teacher--and on the Christian meaning of life. At the same time it is deeply practical. Many of the central ideas have been tried and proven true over a century in almost every kind of educational situation. The ideas are in fact so true that they can be applied equally at home, in different schools, in Africa, in the inner city, and in your own community. But they are also ideas which Susan and her husband Ranald Macaulay have tried and proven in their own family and school experience.For the Children's Sake is a book which can help every parent and teacher awaken the young minds of their children and give them a new richness, stability, and joy for living.

The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do


Peg Tyre - 2008
    They get expelled from preschool nearly five times more often than girls; in elementary school, they’re diagnosed with learning disorders four times as often. By eighth grade huge numbers are reading below basic level. And by high school, they’re heavily outnumbered in AP classes and, save for the realm of athletics, show indifference to most extra­curricular activities. Perhaps most alarmingly, boys now account for less than 43 percent of those enrolled in college, and the gap widens every semester!The imbalance in higher education isn’t just a “boy problem,” though. Boys’ decreasing college attendance is bad news for girls, too, because ad­missions officers seeking balanced student bodies pass over girls in favor of boys. The growing gender imbalance in education portends massive shifts for the next generation: how much they make and whom they marry. Interviewing hundreds of parents, kids, teachers, and experts, award-winning journalist Peg Tyre drills below the eye-catching statistics to examine how the educational system is failing our sons. She explores the convergence of culprits, from the emphasis on high-stress academics in preschool and kindergarten, when most boys just can’t tolerate sitting still, to the outright banning of recess, from the demands of No Child Left Behind, with its rigid emphasis on test-taking, to the boy-unfriendly modern curriculum with its focus on writing about “feelings” and its purging of “high-action” reading material, from the rise of video gaming and schools’ unease with technology to the lack of male teachers as role models.But this passionate, clearheaded book isn’t an exercise in finger-pointing. Tyre, the mother of two sons, offers notes from the front lines—the testimony of teachers and other school officials who are trying new techniques to motivate boys to learn again, one classroom at a time. The Trouble with Boys gives parents, educators, and anyone concerned about the state of education a manifesto for change—one we must undertake right away lest school be-come, for millions of boys, unalterably a “girl thing.”From the Hardcover edition.

What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy


James Paul Gee - 2003
    James Paul Gee begins his new book with 'I want to talk about vide games- yes, even violent video games - and say some positive things about them'. With this simple but explosive beginning, one of America's most well-respected professors of education looks seriously at the good that can come from playing video games. Gee is interested in the cognitive development that can occur when someone is trying to escape a maze, find a hidden treasure and, even, blasting away an enemy with a high-powered rifle. Talking about his own video-gaming experience learning and using games as diverse as Lara Croft and Arcanum, Gee looks at major specific cognitive activities: How individuals develop a sense of identity; How one grasps meaning; How one evaluates and follows a command; How one picks a role model; How one perceives the world.

Hysteria!


Phoebe Bennett, Nick Minter - 2019
    Crossing decades and continents, and from personal panics to societal scares, Alice Lowe explores hysterical behaviour. Come join the delirium....Hysteria is a word that regularly gets misused. It gets attached to everything from overly emotional behaviour to moral panics, via stock market crashes, stampedes, viral videos and more. It’s often used – pejoratively – about women, and it shares its roots with the ancient Greek word for womb. The story of hysteria touches on issues of stigma, gender, morality and power. But how do we separate mass psychogenic illness from mere emotional excess?Filmmaker, actress and writer Alice Lowe has long been fascinated by the grey area between behavioural control and abandon. In this six-part series, she explores what we really mean when we talk about frenzies, fevers, manias and panics – both individually and throughout society.Produced by Wisebuddah for Audible Originals.This is an Audible Original Podcast. Free for members. You can download all 6 episodes to your Library now.

How to Behave So Your Preschooler Will, Too!


Sal Severe - 2002
    Sal Severe, the parenting guru and bestselling author of "How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too!" Based on Dr. Severe's philosophy that a child's behavior is often a reflection of parents' behavior, "How to Behave So Your Preschooler Will, Too!" will teach parents with children between the ages of three and six to adjust their behavior to better handle: * Fussing at bedtime * How to set limits * Tantrums * Crying scenes when leaving a play date * Sibling rivalry * Preparing to start school * Toilet training * And more With practical and easy-to-implement suggestions, this book shows parents how to manage anger, prevent arguments, and promote their child's physical, emotional, and language development. It is certain to become a bible for stressed-out, exhausted parents everywhere.

The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction


Matthew B. Crawford - 2015
    Crawford explored the ethical and practical importance of manual competence, as expressed through mastery of our physical environment. In his brilliant follow-up, The World Beyond Your Head, Crawford investigates the challenge of mastering one's own mind.We often complain about our fractured mental lives and feel beset by outside forces that destroy our focus and disrupt our peace of mind. Any defense against this, Crawford argues, requires that we reckon with the way attention sculpts the self.Crawford investigates the intense focus of ice hockey players and short-order chefs, the quasi-autistic behavior of gambling addicts, the familiar hassles of daily life, and the deep, slow craft of building pipe organs. He shows that our current crisis of attention is only superficially the result of digital technology, and becomes more comprehensible when understood as the coming to fruition of certain assumptions at the root of Western culture that are profoundly at odds with human nature.The World Beyond Your Head makes sense of an astonishing array of common experience, from the frustrations of airport security to the rise of the hipster. With implications for the way we raise our children, the design of public spaces, and democracy itself, this is a book of urgent relevance to contemporary life.

Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child's Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore


Kent Hoffman - 2017
    But in striving to do everything right, we risk missing what children really need for lifelong emotional security. Now the simple, powerful "Circle of Security" parenting strategies that Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, and Bert Powell have taught thousands of families are available in self-help form for the first time.  You will learn:  *How to balance nurturing and protectiveness with promoting your child's independence.  *What emotional needs a toddler or older child may be expressing through difficult behavior. *How your own upbringing affects your parenting style--and what you can do about it.  Filled with vivid stories and unique practical tools, this book puts the keys to healthy attachment within everyone's reach--self-understanding, flexibility, and the willingness to make and learn from mistakes. Self-assessment checklists can be downloaded and printed for ease of use.