Making mistakes has always been a part of growing up, but how do parents help their kids navigate childhood and adolescence at a time when social media has the potential to magnify the consequences of those mistakes? Rather than spend all their time worrying about the worst-case scenario, readers get a bigger-picture understanding of their kids' digital landscape. Drawing on research and interviews with educators, psychologists, and kids themselves, Raising a Screen-Smart Kid offers practical advice on how parents can help their kids avoid the pitfalls and reap the benefits of the digital age by:- using social media to enhance connection with friends and family, instead of following strangers and celebrities, which is a predictor of loneliness and depression - finding online support and community for conditions such as depression and eating disorders, while avoiding potential triggers such as #Thinspiration Pinterest boards - learning and developing life skills through technology--for example, by problem-solving in online games--while avoiding inappropriate contentWritten by a public health expert and the creator of the popular blog Rants from Mommyland, this book shows parents how to help their kids navigate friendships, bullying, dating, self-esteem, and more online.

    She moves beyond the black and white “mommy wars” over natural parenting, discipline, and work-life balance to explore a more nuanced reality: one filled with ambivalence, joy, guilt, and exhaustion.    Would-be parents must navigate the decision to have children amidst a daunting combination of cultural expectations and hard facts. And new parents find themselves struggling to reconcile their elation with the often exhausting, confusing, and expensive business of child care. When researchers for a 2010 Pew study asked parents why they decided to have their first child, nearly 90 percent answered, for “the joy of having children.” Yet nearly every study in the last ten years shows a marked decline in the life satisfaction of those with kids.  Valenti explores this disconnect between parents’ hopes and the day-to-day reality of raising children—revealing all the ways mothers and fathers are quietly struggling. A must-read for parents as well as those considering starting a family, Why Have Kids? is an explosive addition to the conversation about modern parenthood.

    From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically. While Emily is working hard at school and getting A’s, her brother Justin is goofing off. He’s more concerned about getting to the next level in his video game than about finishing his homework.Now, Dr. Leonard Sax delves into the scientific literature and draws on more than twenty years of clinical experience to explain why boys and young men are failing in school and disengaged at home. He shows how social, cultural, and biological factors have created an environment that is literally toxic to boys. He also presents practical solutions, sharing strategies which educators have found effective in re-engaging these boys at school, as well as handy tips for parents about everything from homework, to video games, to medication.

    Or, as #1 New York Times bestselling author and celebrity trainer Jorge Cruise explains: When we eat is as important as what we eat. Building on the scientifically proven but hard-to-sustain day-on, day-off technique known as "intermittent fasting," Cruise simplifies your calendar by dividing every day into two easy-to-remember nutritional zones: a 16-hour evening and overnight "burn zone" (semi-fasting) followed by an 8-hour "boost zone" (eating). To help you crush cravings throughout, he ingeniously introduces foods that can be consumed in either zone to keep you burning fat all around the clock. You'll never be hungry if you don't really ever have to fully fast! Putting the body on weight-loss autopilot, The Cruise Control Diet includes: * 50 recipes for deliciously unexpected boost-zone foods, such as Margherita pizza, spaghetti squash lasagna, and turmeric shrimp;* 15 high-fat, no-sugar burn-zone recipes for craving-quenching foods like chocolate coconut mousse and caramel chai latte;* Weekly menus and handy grocery lists to take guessing out of the equation;* Candid testimonials and amazing weight loss results from Cruise's clients;* An optional burn-zone exercise program with instructional photos.

    With compassion, humor, insight, and practical wisdom born of firsthand experience, Galit Breen makes a compelling case for online decency. What would happen if parents and kids everywhere could read these 10 simple rules of conduct, learn them by heart, and live by them each and every time they log in? The world would change dramatically--and for the good of us all."--Katrina Kenison, author of Mitten Strings for God and The Gift of an Ordinary DayIf kindness wins, accountability rules. The need for this mantra is never clearer than when scrolling through posts and comments online.Approximately four out of ten kids (42 percent) have experienced cyberbullying. When we were young, our bullies weren't usually strangers. They were the kids who passed mean notes about us in class, the ones who didn't let us sit at their table during lunch, and the ones who tripped us in the hallway or embarrassed us in gym class. Cyberbullying isn't all that different from the playground bullying of our youth and nightmares. But with social media, our bullies have nonstop access to us--and our kids. In fact, we're often "friends" with our bullies online.When freelance writer Galit Breen's kids hinted that they'd like to post, tweet, and share photos on Instagram, Breen took a look at social media as a mom and as a teacher and quickly realized that there's a ridiculous amount of kindness terrain to teach and explain to kids―and some adults―before letting them loose online. So she took to her pen and wrote a how-to book for parents who are tackling this issue with their kids.Kindness Wins covers ten habits to directly teach kids as they're learning how to be kind online. Each section is written in Breen's trademark parent-to-parent-over-coffee style and concludes with resources for further reading, discussion starters, and bulleted takeaways. She ends the book with two contracts―one to share with peers and one to share with kids. Just like we needed to teach our children how to walk, swim, and throw a ball, we need to teach them how to maneuver kindly online. This book will help you do just that.

    In short: What looks like misbehavior is actually your children’s signal that they’re feeling lost, that they are trying to find direction and looking to you to guide them back on course.   Payne gives parents heartwarming help and encouragement by combining astute observations with sensitive and often funny stories from his long career as a parent educator and a school and family counselor. In accessible language, he explains the relevance of current brain- and child-development studies to day-to-day parenting. Breaking the continuum of childhood into three stages, Payne says that parents need to play three different roles, each corresponding to one of those stages, to help steer children through their emotional growth and inevitable challenging times:   • The Governor, who is comfortably and firmly in charge—setting limits and making decisions for the early years up to around the age of eight • The Gardener, who watches for emotional growth and makes decisions based on careful listening, assisting tweens in making plans that take the whole family’s needs into account • The Guide, who is both a sounding board and moral compass for emerging adults, helping teens build a sense of their life’s direction as a way to influence healthy decision making   Practical and rooted in common sense, The Soul of Discipline gives parents permission to be warm and nurturing but also calm and firm (not overreactive). It gives clear, doable strategies to get things back on track for parents who sense that their children’s behavior has fallen into a troubling pattern. And best of all, it provides healthy direction to the entire family so parents can spend less time and energy on outmoded, punitive discipline and more on connecting with and enjoying their kids.Advance praise for The Soul of Discipline   “The Soul of Discipline offers practical tools for helping parents implement discipline that’s respectful and effective, but the book is so much more. Kim John Payne offers a framework to guide parents in making decisions about why, when, and how to hold tighter reins as we build skills in our children, and why, when, and how to loosen the reins as we scaffold freedom.”—Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., co-author of No-Drama Discipline   “This book gets deep inside the challenge of getting along with children and teens and thinks deeply about what they need from us to become strong and self-managing. It elevates discipline to what it should be—a caring process of helping kids orient to the world and live in it happily and well.”—Steve Biddulph, author of The New Manhood   “Kim Payne provides a useful model for choosing our parenting stance—Governor, Gardener, or Guide—depending on the situation. Most powerfully, Payne begins with the radical view that children are not disobedient but rather disoriented. The upshot of this shift in perspective is that discipline is about helping children orient themselves effectively, not about controlling or chastising.”—Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful ParentingFrom the Hardcover edition.

    John Medina showed us how our brains really work—and why we ought to redesign our workplaces and schools. Now, in Brain Rules for Baby, he shares what the latest science says about how to raise smart and happy children from zero to 5. This book is destined to revolutionize parenting. Just one of the surprises: The best way to get your children into the college of their choice? Teach them impulse control.Brain Rules for Baby bridges the gap between what scientists know and what parents practice. Through fascinating and funny stories, Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and dad, unravels how a child’s brain develops--and what you can do to optimize it.You will view your children—and how to raise them—in a whole new light. You’ll learn:Where nature ends and nurture beginsWhy men should do more household choresWhat you do when emotions run hot affects how your child turns outTV is harmful for children under 2Your child’s ability to relate to others predicts her future math performanceSmart and happy are inseparable. Pursuing your child’s intellectual success at the expense of his happiness achieves neitherPraising effort is better than praising intelligenceThe best predictor of academic performance is not IQ. It’s self controlWhat you do right now—before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and through the first five years—will affect your children for the rest of their lives. Brain Rules for Baby is an indispensable guide.

    But how can you guide them without resorting to less-than-optimal behavior yourself? Dr. Becky Bailey's unusual and powerful approach to parenting has made thousands of families happier and healthier.Focusing on self-control and confidence-building for both parent and child, Dr. Bailey teaches a series of linked skills to help families move from turmoil to tranquility:7 Powers for Self-Control to help parents model the behavior they want their kids to follow. These lead to:7 Basic Discipline Skills to help children manage sticky situations at home and a t school, which will help your children develop:7 Values for Living, such as integrity, respect, compassion, responsibility, and more.Dr. Bailey integrates these principles in a seven-week program that gets families off to a good start, offering plenty of real-life anecdotes that illustrate her methods at work. With this inspiring and practical book in hand, you'll find new ways of understanding and improving children's behavior, as well as your own.

    Her realistic, achievable methods will help you savor your time with the kids and on your ownParents have struggled with the time equation for generations. In the age of extracurriculars, calendar alerts, and smart phones, the question of how to give your kids undivided attention—and still take care of yourself—looms larger than ever. Time to Parent is a take-you-by-the hand manual that shifts the goal from "having it all" to getting it right in that moment.Morgenstern offers parents: proven strategies for prioritizing what really matters to your family; organizational skills to get the basics—food, clothing, health—in place and out of mind; relief from “this is forever” thinking with ways to divide the parenting years into manageable stages; and realistic, research-backed guidelines for what quality time really looks like.

    But as children grow older and begin thinking about the world in more complex ways, they also become more self-critical. Alarmingly, studies show that self-esteem, for many children, takes a sharp drop starting around age eight, and this decline continues into the early teen years. So, how can you turn the tide on this upsetting trend and help your child build genuine self-esteem?With this guide, you’ll learn that self-esteem isn’t about telling kids they're “special.” It’s about helping them embrace the freedom that comes with a quiet ego—a way of being in the world that isn't preoccupied with self-judgment, and instead embraces a compassionate view of oneself and others that allows for both present awareness and personal growth. When kids are less focused on evaluating and comparing themselves with others, they are freer to empathize with others, embrace learning, and connect with the values that are bigger than themselves.You’ll also discover how your child’s fundamental needs for connection, competence, and choice are essential for real self-esteem. Connection involves building meaningful and satisfying relationships that create a sense of belonging. Competence means building tangible skills. And choice is about being able to make decisions, figure out what matters, and choose to act in ways that are consistent with personal values. When children are able to fulfill these three basic needs, the question of “Am I good enough?” is less likely to come up.If your child is suffering from low self-esteem, you need a nuanced parenting approach. Let this book guide you as you help your child create unshakeable confidence and lasting well-being.

    Live freer. Live a bigger life with less.In Declutter Like a Mother, Allie Casazza comes alongside you to explore:Why decluttering calms anxiety in your heart and lessens tension in your relationships.How to ensure your house is working for you, not against you.Why kids thrive when they’re not overwhelmed with options.How to make time, when you feel you don’t have time, to declutter.Allie Casazza was tired of feeling it was her against the laundry in her home. She wondered if somewhere beneath her frantic days and the mountains of toys in the playroom she would ever find joy and peace in motherhood. Then she discovered the abundance . . . of less.As she purged her home of excess stuff, Allie discovered a lifestyle that strengthened her marriage, saved her motherhood, and helped her develop her gifts in a way that no amount of new kitchen appliances or new organizing system ever could.Research studies show a direct link between stress levels and the amount of physical possessions people have in their homes, and Allie has seen that truth play out in her own life and in the lives of hundreds of thousands of other moms she has mentored through her business and online courses. She proclaims:You don’t need a home that’s perfect. You need a home that’s lighter. Discover less stress, more space. Less chaos, more peace. Less of what doesn’t matter, so you have room for what matters most of all.

    Addressing the task of disciplining children ages 2 through 12 without arguing, yelling, or spanking, this program offers easy-to- follow steps to immediately manage troublesome behaviour with reason, patience, and compassion.

    Research shows that spirited kids are wired to be "more"—by temperament, they are more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and uncomfortable with change than the average child. In this revised edition of the award-winning classic, voted one of the top twenty books for parents, Kurcinka provides vivid examples and a refreshingly positive viewpoint. Raising Your Spirited Child will help you:understand your child's­—and your own—temperamental traitsdiscover the power of positive—rather than negative—labelscope with the tantrums and power struggles when they do occurplan for success with a simple four-step programdevelop strategies for handling mealtimes, sibling rivalry, bedtimes, holidays, and school, among other situations

    Your preschooler refuses to get dressed. Your fifth-grader sulks on the bench instead of playing on the field. Do children conspire to make their parents’ lives endlessly challenging? No—it’s just their developing brain calling the shots!In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids can seem—and feel—so out of control. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth. Raise calmer, happier children using twelve key strategies, including • Name It to Tame It: Corral raging right-brain behavior through left-brain storytelling, appealing to the left brain’s affinity for words and reasoning to calm emotional storms and bodily tension.• Engage, Don’t Enrage: Keep your child thinking and listening, instead of purely reacting.• Move It or Lose It: Use physical activities to shift your child’s emotional state.• Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Guide your children when they are stuck on a negative emotion, and help them understand that feelings come and go.• SIFT: Help children pay attention to the Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts within them so that they can make better decisions and be more flexible.• Connect Through Conflict: Use discord to encourage empathy and greater social success. Complete with clear explanations, age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles, and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.

    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.