Toilet Training Without Tantrums


John Rosemond - 2012
    Your great-grandmother would be amazed to learn that toilet training has become one of Mom's greatest sources of anxiety and frustration during her child's early years. To Great-Grandma, it was no worse than teaching her child to use a spoon. Rosemond does not write from the perspective of a psychologist, but with the common sense and authority derived from 30 years of counseling parents, and from his two children and seven grandchildren, some of whom he helped toilet train. He advises an old-fashioned approach to toilet training that would have earned Grandma's stamp of approval. This book is helpful, revealing, and funny. Best of all, the method works! Thousands of parents have used it to discover how easy toilet training can be. With his trademark parents-take-control style, Rosemond covers everything from the basic how-to and troubleshooting issues to successful testimonies and proper encouragement. His straightforward and no-nonsense advice utilizes simple steps with proven results. No arguing, bribing, or cajoling necessary. It helps parents avoid common toilet-training mistakes, and leads the way to a diaper-free household.

Hello, My Name Is Mommy: The Dysfunctional Girl's Guide to Having, Loving (and Hopefully Not Screwing Up) a Baby


Sheri Lynch - 2004
    Dr. Spock may tell moms to trust their instincts, but Lynch's Misfit Mommies want to do every last thing but that. They feel like frauds and imposters, and Lynch's real-girl's voice will be instantly recognizable to them. Lynch will walk and talk new moms through it all: from lamenting the hot dogs and second-hand smoke they were raised on (and, of course, "you turned out just fine") to the realization that kids are kind of germy and gross (but feeling that way doesn't make one a bad mother) to keeping it together at work with Cheerios in the old nursing bra.

The Sh!t No One Tells You About Baby #2: A Guide To Surviving Your Growing Family


Dawn Dais - 2016
    Around the time your first baby turns a year old your brain will turn on you. For reasons that are still not understood by science, the sleep deprivation and postpartum hormones you barely survived with your first baby fade from memory and will be replaced with idyllic images of your growing child. This is when your brain, having officially lost all regard for your well-being, begins to fantasize about a second baby. And for the first time since becoming a parent these thoughts don't make you break out in hives. Before you know it, you are dressing your first child in "I'm Going to be a Big Sister!" T-shirts and catalog-shopping for bunk beds. This will be fantastic! But then that familiar morning sickness kicks in. And your adorable 18-month-old transforms into a two-year-old terror. That's when those hives start to return. With Dawn Dais's trademark witty banter, The Sh!t No One Tells You About Baby #2 includes chapters such as "You Have Officially Lost Control of the Situation," "Siblings Aren't Nearly as Adorable as You Imagined," "You'll Have a Favorite," and "Having Kids Looks a Lot Easier on TV."

Blue Like Play Dough: The Shape of Motherhood in the Grip of God


Tricia Goyer - 2009
    In Blue Like Play Dough, she shares her unlikely journey from rebellious, pregnant teen to busy wife and mom with big dreams of her own. As her story unfolds, Tricia realizes that God has more in store for her than she has ever imagined possible.Sure, life is messy and beset by doubts. But God keeps showing up in the most unlikely places?in a bowl of carrot soup, the umpteenth reading of Goodnight Moon, a woe-is me teen drama, or play dough in the hands of a child.In Tricia's transparent account, you'll find understanding, laughter, and strength for your own story. And in the daily push and pull, you'll learn to recognizes the loving hands of God at work in your life? and know He has something beautiful in mind.

It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters


Andrea J. BuchananMiriam Peskowitz - 2006
    Some people were happy for her; visions of flouncy pink dresses and promises of mother-daughter bonding were the predictable responses. Other people, though, were concerned: "Is your husband OK with that?" "You can try again." "Girls are tough." This mixed message led her to explore the issue herself, with help from her fellow writers and moms, many of whom had had the same experience. As she did in It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, Buchanan and her contributors take on what it's really like to raise a child-in this case, a girl-from babyhood to adulthood.It's a Girl, is a wide-ranging, often humorous, and honest collection of essays about the experience of the mother-daughter bond, taking on topics like "princess power" ("Shining, Shimmering, Splendid"), adding a girl to a brood of boys ("Confessions of a Tomboy Mom"), dealing with a daughter's eating disorder ("The Food Rules"), and mothering "hardcore mini-feminists" ("Tough Girls").

Toddlers Are A**holes: It's Not Your Fault


Sopha King Tyerd - 2014
    Delve deep into the mind of these creatures and learn what makes them tick.

Hold Me Close, Let Me Go: A Mother, A Daughter and an Adolescence Survived


Adair Lara - 2001
    The author, her youngest son, Patrick, her ex-husband, Jim, and her new husband, Bill, all stepped on a five-year roller-coaster ride in which Morgan incarnated the chaos principle in torn jeans and dyed hair. Drinking, drugging, disappearing, suspicious companions, failing and cheating at school, joy riding in a stolen car–there was no variety of adolescent acting out that she didn’t indulge in. For Adair Lara it became an endless sojourn at the end of her rope, a trial immensely complicated by the reappearance in her life of her aging father, a man who had abandoned his wife and seven children decades earlier. Inevitably, Morgan’s misbehavior revives memories of her own headstrong adolescence, while her father’s presence makes agonizingly real for her the consequences of giving up. Paradoxically, he also becomes the source of her best advice.Hold Me Close, Let Me Go is an emotionally charged, often brutally honest memoir that all parents (and anyone who was ever a teenager) will experience shocks of recognition from while reading. It imparts invaluable lessons about holding loved ones close through the roughest passages and about the power of family to overcome the most grievous obstacles. Adair Lara is a clear-eyed and eloquent witness to the complex costs and rewards of motherhood, and her book will redefine for readers their idea of what being “a good enough mother” really means.

Things I Wish Id Known Sooner


Jaroldeen Edwards - 1991
    Things I Wish I'd Known Sooner is a many-hued bouquet of wisdom and strength for women at every stage of living. From a woman who found her life never perfect yet always full of wonder comes a rare treasure of a book.

Somebody Else's Children: The Courts, the Kids, and the Struggle to Save America's Troubled Families


John Hubner - 1997
    It provides an intimate look at the lives of the parents and children whose fate it decides. A must for social workers and social work students, attorneys, judges, foster parents, law students, child advocates, teachers, journalists and anyone who cares about our nation's children.

Stalked: A True Story of Obsession


Kate Brennan - 2009
    Too late did Kate discover his dark side: the serial infidelity, unbalanced character and sordid secrets. This is Kate's harrowing story of how she tried to escape.

Love and Anger: The Parental Dilemma


Nancy Samalin - 1991
    An honest look at how children can drive the most loving parent to periodic madness, along with practical suggestions for how to cope.--Adele Faber.

The Daily Question For You and Your Child: A Three Year Spiritual Journal


Waterbrook - 2018
    By answering each of the 365 questions together on the same date each year, readers will get a unique and precious picture into their child's feelings, development, and personality. Some of the questions focus on spirituality and the child's heart, while some are meant to capture their creativity, spirit, and sense of humor. All questions spark conversations and memories that span well beyond the pages of this book.

I Won't Forgive What You Did: A little girl's suffering. A mother who let it happen


Faith Scott - 2010
    Bewildered by the bizarre and cruel behaviour of her mother and terrified by the violent outbursts of her perpetually angry father, the only certainty in life is that there is none. So when Granddad 'Pop' gives her sweets and does the horrid things he does to her, how is she to know that isn't what all Granddads do? And if it isn't, why does her mother find it funny? Told with honesty and courage, this is the story of a little girl who never stood a chance - who was regularly abused in the most shocking ways by her family and preyed upon by the worst kind of men. Faith went on to have two children in her teens and endured appalling domestic violence but now, after all the suffering, she has turned her life around. Her decades-long journey out of the darkness tells the truth about what happens to abused children when they grow up, in a story that's horrifying and compelling in equal measure.

The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting


Ariel Gore - 2004
    The zine that’s been called "fun and irreverent" by USA Today, "delightful" by Glamour, and "cutting-edge" by the Chicago Tribune has grown up alongside Gore’s daughter, covering subjects from weaning to home schooling with a political edge and a puckish sense of humor. The Essential Hip Mama captures the heart of a decade’s worth of earthy, honest, soulful parenting—and topics from circumcision to dating, abortion to the belief that "mothers don’t fart." Gore has gathered in one volume the whispers and conversations heard in homes, on playgrounds, and in coffeehouses around the country. Reassuring and hopeful, The Essential Hip Mama is a brilliant testament that one becomes an "expert" simply through the act of mothering, echoing Gore’s own words, "Whenever I’ve needed parenting advice, I’ve put out a call for submissions."

More for Mom: Living Your Whole and Holy Life


Kristin Funston - 2019
    The pieces of each mom's life-the work life, mom life, social life, etc.-are mended together through Christ to complete her one whole life, set apart because of Him.This book is a stepping stone to help working mothers reset their spiritual and emotional health, habits, and relationship with God. There are performance pressures at work, home, and mind-sets that affect a mom's ability to feel complete and live more closely aligned with God. This book includes the beginning steps for moms to walk in wholeness and holiness by asking God for more.