. . Tonight ScreamFree Parenting is not just about lowering your voice. It’s about learning to calm your emotional reactions and learning to focus on your own behavior more than your kids’ behavior . . . for their benefit. Our biggest enemy as parents is not the TV, the Internet, or even drugs. Our biggest enemy is our own emotional reactivity. When we say we “lost it” with our kids, the “it” in that sentence is our own adulthood. And then we wonder why our kids have so little respect for us, why our kids seem to have all the power in the family. It’s time to do it differently. And you can. You can start to create and enjoy the types of calm, mutually respectful, and loving relationships with your kids that you’ve always craved. You can begin to revolutionize your family, starting tonight. Parenting is not about kids, it’s about parents. If you’re not in control, then you cannot be in charge. What every kid really needs are parents who are able to keep their cool no matter what.

    Yet the thing we call "parenting" is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the multibillion dollar industry surrounding it have transformed child care into obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented labor intended to create a particular kind of child and therefore a particular kind of adult. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong--it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too.Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. “Parenting" won't make children learn—but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.

    . . on childhood. As the pace of life accelerates to hyperspeed–with too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time–children feel the pressure. They can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Now, in defense of the extraordinary power of less, internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need, allowing their children’s attention to focus and their individuality to flourish.Based on Payne’s twenty year’s experience successfully counseling busy families, Simplicity Parenting teaches parents how to worry and hover less–and how to enjoy more. For those who want to slow their children’s lives down but don’t know where to start, Payne offers both inspiration and a blueprint for change.• Streamline your home environment. The average child has more than 150 toys. Here are tips for reducing the amount of toys, books, and clutter–as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload that crowd the space young imaginations need in order to grow.• Establish rhythms and rituals. Predictability (routines) and transparency (knowing the day’s plan) are soothing pressure valves for children. Here are ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed.• Schedule a break in the schedule. Too many activities may limit children’s ability to motivate and direct themselves. Learn how to establish intervals of calm in your child’s daily torrent of constant doing–and familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of organized sports and other “enrichment” activities.• Scale back on media and parental involvement. Back out of hyperparenting by managing your children’s “screen time” to limit the endless and sometimes scary deluge of information and stimulation. Parental hovering is really about anxiety; by doing less and trusting more, parents can create a sanctuary that nurtures children’s identity, well-being, and resiliency as they grow–slowly–into themselves. A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of parenting.

    Now, in response to growing demand, Adele’s daughter, Joanna Faber, along with Julie King, tailor How to Talk’s powerful communication skills to children ages two to seven. Faber and King, each a parenting expert in her own right, share their wisdom accumulated over years of conducting How To Talk workshops with parents and a broad variety of professionals. With a lively combination of storytelling, cartoons, and fly-on-the-wall discussions from their workshops, they provide concrete tools and tips that will transform your relationship with the young kids in your life. What do you do with a little kid who…won’t brush her teeth…screams in his car seat…pinches the baby...refuses to eat vegetables…throws books in the library...runs rampant in the supermarket? Organized according to common challenges and conflicts, this book is an essential emergency first-aid manual of communication strategies, including a chapter that addresses the special needs of children with sensory processing and autism spectrum disorders. This user-friendly guide will empower parents and caregivers of young children to forge rewarding, joyful relationships with terrible two-year-olds, truculent three-year-olds, ferocious four-year-olds, foolhardy five-year-olds, self-centered six-year-olds, and the occasional semi-civilized seven-year-old. And, it will help little kids grow into self-reliant big kids who are cooperative and connected to their parents, teachers, siblings, and peers.

    Shefali Tsabary’s A Call to Conscious Parenting is that our children are born to us to create deep internal transformation within us.Our children have the power to unleash our egoic behavior unlike anyone else, triggering all of our emotional reactivity. As, through our intimate relationship with them, we are exposed to our immaturity, they become our most accurate mirror of our own lack of emotional development. In other words, by inviting us to confront who we are in our relationship with them, our children raise us to be the parents they long for us to become.Despite our best intentions to raise our children well, in our unconsciousness we pass on emotional legacies to our children that have deep and lasting repercussions. Bequeathing to them our unresolved needs, unmet expectations, and frustrated dreams, we shackle them in unconscious patterns that shut them down to their own unique being. To do justice to parenthood, a parent needs to become conscious. Only to the degree we are willing to transform our own emotional present do we succeed in positively influencing our children’s future.Dr. Tsabary asks us to set aside traditional parenting strategies that major in controlling our children and instead find true kinship with their spirits by tuning into who each child is in its own unique essence. Surrendering to the oneness of the parent-child relationship in this way lifts parenting out of the physical and into the realm of the sacred.Peppered with practical, hands-on examples from Dr. Tsabary’s real-life experiences with the countless families she has helped journey consciously together, A Call to Conscious Parenting is a manual for giving our children the opportunity to shine and dazzle with their natural state of being.

    On Becoming Babywise brings hope to the tired and bewildered parents looking for an alternative to sleepless nights and fussy babies. The Babywise Parent Directed Feeding concept has enough structure to bring security and order to your baby's world, yet enough flexibility to give mom freedom to respond to any need at any time. It teaches parents how to lovingly guide their baby's day rather than be guided or enslaved to the infant's unknown needs. The information contained within On Becoming Babywise is loaded with success. Comprehensive breast-feeding follow-up surveys spanning three countries, of mothers using the PDF method verify that as a result of the PDF concepts, 88% breast-feed, compared to the national average of only 54% (from the National Center for Health Statistics). Of these breast-feeding mothers, 80% of them breast-feed exclusively without a formula complement. And while 70% of our mothers are still breast-feeding after six months, the national average encourage to follow demand feeding without any guidelines is only 20%. The mean average time of breast-feeding for PDF moms is 33 1/2 weeks, well above the national average. Over 50% of PDF mothers extend their breast-feeding toward and well into the first year. Added to these statistics is another critical factor. The average breast-fed PDF baby sleeps continuously through night seven to eight hours between weeks seven and nine. Healthy sleep in infants is analogous to healthy growth and development. Find out for yourself why a world of parents and pediatricians utilize the concepts found in On Becoming Babywise.

    By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In CRIBSHEET, she now tackles an even great challenge: decision making in the early years of parenting. As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There's a rule--or three--for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the tradeoffs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision?

    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.

    We call this imprisonment schooling, yet wonder why kids become bored and misbehave. Even outside of school children today seldom play and explore without adult supervision, and are afforded few opportunities to control their own lives. The result: anxious, unfocused children who see schooling—and life—as a series of hoops to struggle through.In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know, but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.To foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development. Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, Gray demonstrates that free play is the primary means by which children learn to control their lives, solve problems, get along with peers, and become emotionally resilient. This capacity to learn through play evolved long ago, in hunter-gatherer bands where children acquired the skills of the culture through their own initiatives. And these instincts still operate remarkably well today, as studies at alternative, democratically administered schools show. When children are in charge of their own education, they learn better—and at lower cost than the traditional model of coercive schooling.A brave, counterintuitive proposal for freeing our children from the shackles of the curiosity-killing institution we call school, Free to Learn suggests that it’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with our children, and start asking what’s wrong with the system. It shows how we can act—both as parents and as members of society—to improve children’s lives and promote their happiness and learning.

    Toddlers can be tricky. On one hand they can be lovely. On the other hand they can be really hard work. They'll make you laugh. And they will probably bring you to tears. Or at least a high level of frustration.I felt the same way when my children were small and I was struggling to get them to do things. I felt enormous empathy for them, but wasn’t sure what the alternative was to threatening, bribing or putting them into time out.It’s been my mission since then to find another way. I’ve now been working in Montessori education for nearly 15 years and love to learn from the 100 toddlers and parents I see every week in my classroom. I am so happy to share with you what I have learned and help you understand your toddler better too.This book is the result. Your comprehensive guide to raising toddlers in a Montessori way.A quick aside for those of you that don't know Montessori. It is an alternative education system where, instead of the teacher standing at the front of the classroom telling the kids what they need to know, the children are free to explore a classroom of well-designed materials covering language, mathematics, daily life skills and more. The result is that the children are able to follow their unique natural rhythm and development as well as learn with concrete learning materials to make discoveries for themselves. But that's it. It's not just for school aged children - you can apply exactly the same ideas in your home and with your toddler.And when I say toddler, I'm talking about children around 1 to 3 years, give or take a few months.Each section of the book is super practical and it is beautifully designed to make it even easier to read. It’s perfect if you are a busy parent, carer or even grandparent. And it doesn't matter if you are brand new to Montessori or have been using Montessori for a while - or even if you aren't planning to send your children to Montessori school. You can read it from cover to cover. Or just open up the book at a page that interests you and you will find something practical you can try today.You’ll learn how to set up your home to get rid of the chaos and bring back some calm into your lives. You will get the tools to work together with your child. How you can lead, guide and support them, especially when they are having a hard time (and throwing themselves on the ground in the most inconvenient of places). You’ll also get ideas to create Montessori activities at home that are just right for your toddler. You will find answers to your questions. To see there is another more peaceful way to be with your toddler. To help you plant the seeds to raise a respectful and responsible human being. To work on a relationship with your toddler which you will be building on for years.So are you ready to say goodbye to frustration and hello to peace and calm? It’s time for us to learn to see through our toddler’s eyes - The Montessori Toddler.

    What makes Denmark the happiest country in the world--and what are the secrets of Danish parents for raising happy, confident, succesful kids, year after year? This upbeat and practical guide brings together the insights of a licensed psychotherapist and a mom -- a Dane and an American married to a Dane, respectively -- on the habits of the happiest families on earth.The book delivers fresh advice on how to:- Encourage free play- Foster authenticity and confidence - Nurture empathy - Emphasize teamwork over power struggles- Celebrate togetherness  Filled with practical takeaways and inspiring examples, The Danish Way of Parenting will help parents from all walks of life raise the happiest, most well-adjusted kids in the world.

    What do these three accomplishments have in common? They’re the result of TRICK, Woj’s secret to raising successful people: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. Simple lessons, but the results are radical. Wojcicki’s methods are the opposite of helicopter parenting. As we face an epidemic of parental anxiety, Woj is here to say: relax. Talk to infants as if they are adults. Allow teenagers to pick projects that relate to the real world and their own passions, and let them figure out how to complete them. Above all, let your child lead. How to Raise Successful People offers essential lessons for raising, educating, and managing people to their highest potential. Change your parenting, change the world.

    But what she did not expect was what she would lose: aspects of her identity, a baseline level of happiness, a general sense of wellbeing. And though she had the benefit of a supportive husband during this transition, she also at times resented the fact that the disruption to his life seemed to pale in comparison to hers.As a clinical psychologist, Molly knew her experience was a normal response to a life-changing event. But without the advantage of such a perspective, many of the patients she treated in her private practice grappled with self-doubt, guilt, and fear, and suffered the dual pain of not only the struggle to adjust but also the overwhelming shame for struggling at all.In To Have and to Hold, Molly explores the complex terrain of new motherhood, illuminating the ways it affects women psychologically, emotionally, physically, and professionally—as well as how it impacts their partnership. Along with the arrival of a bundle of joy come thorny issues such as self-worth, control, autonomy, and dependency. And for most new mothers, these issues are experienced within the context of an intimate relationship, adding another layer of tension, conflict, and confusion to an already challenging time.As Molly examines the inextricable link between women’s well-being as new mothers and the well-being of their relationships, she offers guidance to help readers reclaim their identities, overcome their guilt and shame, and repair their relationships. A blend of personal narrative, scientific research, and stories from Molly’s clinical practice, To Have and to Hold provides a much-needed lifeline to new mothers everywhere.

    In this optimistic, solution-packed book, KJ asks: How can we change our family life so that it is full of the joy we'd always hoped for? Drawing from the latest research and interviews with families, KJ discovers that it's possible to do more by doing less, and make our family life a refuge and pleasure, rather than another stress point in a hectic day. She focuses on nine common problem spots that cause parents the most grief, explores why they are hard, and offers small, doable, sometimes surprising steps you can take to make them better. Whether it's getting everyone out the door on time in the morning or making sure chores and homework get done without another battle, How to Be a Happier Parent shows that having a family isn't just about raising great kids and churning them out at destination: success. It's about experiencing joy--real joy, the kind you look back on, look forward to, and live for--along the way.

    In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking "What do kids need — and how can we meet those needs?" What follows from that question are ideas for working with children rather than doing things to them. One basic need all children have, Kohn argues, is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they screw up or fall short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as punishments (including "time-outs"), rewards (including positive reinforcement), and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they please us or impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful, and largely unknown, research detailing the damage caused by leading children to believe they must earn our approval. That's precisely the message children derive from common discipline techniques, even though it's not the message most parents intend to send. More than just another book about discipline, though, Unconditional Parenting addresses the ways parents think about, feel about, and act with their children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about raising kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from "doing to" to "working with" parenting — including how to replace praise with the unconditional support that children need to grow into healthy, caring, responsible people. This is an eye-opening, paradigm-shattering book that will reconnect readers to their own best instincts and inspire them to become better parents.