Book picks similar to
The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World by Jordan Shapiro
parenting
non-fiction
nonfiction
education
Bully: An Action Plan for Teachers, Parents, and Communities to Combat the Bullying Crisis
Lee Hirsch - 2012
From commentary about life after BULLY by the filmmakers and the families in the film, to the story of how Katy Butler’s petition campaign helped defeat the MPAA’s “R” rating, BULLY takes the story of the film beyond the closing credits. Celebrity contributions combine with essays from experts, authors, government officials, and educators to offer powerful insights and concrete steps to take, making the book an essential part of an action plan to combat the bullying epidemic in America.
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Jonathan Haidt - 2018
These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility. The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations. This is a book about how we got here. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt take us on a tour of the social trends stretching back to the 1980s that have produced the confusion and conflict on campus today, including the loss of unsupervised play time and the birth of social media, all during a time of rising political polarization. This is a book about how to fix the mess. The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life, with devastating consequences for them, for their parents, for the companies that will soon hire them, and for a democracy that is already pushed to the brink of violence over its growing political divisions. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do about It
Warren Farrell - 2019
For the first time in American history, our sons will have less education than their dads. It's a crisis of mental health. As boys become young men, their suicide rates go from equal to girls to six times that of young women. It's a crisis of sexuality. Sex is a minefield for our sons. They're bombarded with mixed messages, afraid of being either too sensitive or not sensitive enough. It's a crisis of fathering. Boys with less-involved fathers are more likely to drop out of school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up in prison. It's a crisis of purpose. Boys' old senses of purposes, being a warrior, a leader, or a sole breadwinner, are fading. Many bright boys are experiencing a "purpose void," feeling alienated, withdrawn and addicted to immediate gratification. Compounding this issue are addicting video games that lead to distraction and ADHD.So, what is The Boy Crisis? A comprehensive blueprint for what parents, teachers, and policy-makers can do to renew our sons' sense of purpose to help them become men, fathers, and leaders worthy of our respect.
The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
Karyn Purvis - 2007
Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family--and addressing their special needs--requires care, consideration, and compassion.Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, "The Connected Child" will help you: Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
Dan Kindlon - 1999
They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting--sad, afraid, angry, and silent. Kindlon and Thompson set out to answer this basic, crucial question: What do boys need that they're not getting? They illuminate the forces that threaten our boys, teaching them to believe that "cool" equals macho strength and stoicism. Cutting through outdated theories of "mother blame," "boy biology," and "testosterone," the authors shed light on the destructive emotional training our boys receive--the emotional miseducation of boys.Kindlon and Thompson make a compelling case that emotional literacy is the most valuable gift we can offer our sons, urging parents to recognize the price boys pay when we hold them to an impossible standard of manhood. They identify the social and emotional challenges that boys encounter in school and show how parents can help boys cultivate emotional awareness and empathy--giving them the vital connections and support they need to navigate the social pressures of youth.
24/6: Giving up screens one day a week to get more time, creativity, and connection
Tiffany Shlain - 2019
Internet pioneer and renowned filmmaker Tiffany Shlain takes us on a provocative and entertaining journey through time and technology, introducing a strategy for living in our 24/7 world: turning off all screens for twenty-four hours each week. This practice, which she’s done for nearly a decade with her husband and kids, has completely changed their lives, giving them more time, productivity, connection, and presence. She and her family call it “Technology Shabbat.” Drawn from the ancient ritual of Shabbat, living 24/6 can work for anyone from any background. In this “useful and much-needed guide to turning the clock back to a less frazzled pre-Internet and -smartphone day” (Kirkus Reviews), Shlain shares her story, offers lessons she has learned, and provides a blueprint for how to do it yourself. Along the way, she delves into the neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and history of a weekly day of rest across cultures, making the case for why we need to bring this ritual back. A compelling personal story and a fascinating, far-reaching examination of the complex world we’ve created, 24/6 is a call to regain “the essential dignity of being human in a digital age” (Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human).
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters
Abigail Shrier - 2020
Teenage girls are taking courses of testosterone and disfiguring their bodies. Parents are undermined; experts are over-relied upon; dissenters in science and medicine are intimidated; free speech truckles under renewed attack; socialized medicine bears hidden consequences; and an intersectional era has arisen in which the desire to escape a dominant identity encourages individuals to take cover in victim groups. Every person who has ever had a skeptical thought about the sudden rush toward a non-binary future but been afraid to express it—this book is for you.
The Edge of Malice: The Marie Grossman Story
David P. Miraldi - 2020
But all of that changes when she drives her car into the darkened parking lot of a fast food restaurant. After she lowers her car window to place an order at the drive-thru, a man suddenly appears and places a gun at her temple. What follows is every woman's worst nightmare. The Edge of Malice is a true story about struggle, determination, and a quest for justice. The author, an attorney, places the reader into the swirling currents of the courtroom where no outcome is ever certain. But the story does not conclude when the legal battle is over. The reader follows Marie as she struggles to resolve the unrelenting anger that the legal system has been unable to extinguish. In the end, Marie's journey to find inner peace is as improbable as it is transformative.
The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It
Anthony T. DeBenedet - 2011
Gym classes are getting shorter. Recess periods are being eliminated. Some new schools don't even have playgrounds. Is it any wonder children retreat to "virtual horseplay" via video games?But Drs. Anthony T. DeBenedet and Lawrence J. Cohen are here to shake things up--literally! With The Art of Roughhousing, they show how rough-and-tumble play can nurture close connections, solve behavior problems, boost confidence, and more. Drawing inspiration from gymnastics, martial arts, ballet, traditional sports, and even animal behavior, the authors present dozens of illustrated activities for children and parents to enjoy together--everything from the "Sumo Dead Lift" to the "Rogue Dumbo." These delightful games are fun, free, and contain many surprising health benefits for parents. So put down those electronic games and get ready to rumble!
Baby and Child Care
Benjamin Spock - 1946
Benjamin Spock. But while children never change, issues and concerns do. Dr. Robert Needlman, himself a top-notch pediatrician, has newly updated and expanded this timeless classic to speak to any parent who is raising children in our rapidly changing world. While still providing reassuring advice on age-old topics such as caring for a new baby, as well as accidents, illness, and injuries, this book also contains expanded information in many new areas, including: • Cutting-edge medical opinion on immunizations • Obesity and nutrition • Cultural diversity and nontraditional family structures • Children’s learning and brain development • The newest thinking on children with special needs • Environmental health • Increasingly common disorders such as ADHD, depression, and autism— including medications and behavioral interventions • Children and the media, including electronic games • Coping with family stress • And much, much more With an updated glossary of common medications and an authoritative list of the most reliable online resources, this invaluable guide is still the next best thing to Dr. Spock’s #1 rule of parenting: “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
Better Conversations: Coaching Ourselves and Each Other to Be More Credible, Caring, and Connected
Jim Knight - 2015
Some were good, others not so much so. But I want to have GREAT conversations, and Jim Knight has taught me how. The proof is in: better conversations are possible and the results are worth the investment.”--DOUGLAS FISHERCoauthor of Rigorous Reading and Unstoppable LearningBecause conversation is the lifeblood of any schoolYou don’t want this book—you need this book. Why this confident claim? Think about how many times you’ve walked away from school conversations, sensing they could be more productive, but at a loss for how to improve them.Enter instructional coaching expert Jim Knight, who in Better Conversations honors our capacity for improving our schools by improving our communication. Asserting that our schools are only as good as the conversations within them, Jim shows us how to adopt the habits essential to transforming the quality of our dialogues. As coaches, as administrators, as teachers, it’s time to thrive. Learn how to: Coach ourselves and each other to become better communicators Listen with empathy Find common ground Build Trust Our students’ academic, social, and emotional growth depends upon our doing this hard work. It’s time to roll up our sleeves, open our minds, and dare to change for the better of the students we serve. You can get started now with Better Conversationsand the accompanying Reflection Guide to Better Conversations.
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.
Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters!
Rachel Macy Stafford - 2014
We check our email while cooking dinner, send a text while bathing the kids, and spend more time looking into electronic screens than into the eyes of our loved ones. With our never-ending to-do lists and jam-packed schedules, it's no wonder we're distracted.But this isn't the way it has to be. Special education teacher, New York Times bestselling author, and mother Rachel Macy Stafford says enough is enough. Tired of losing track of what matters most in life, Rachel began practicing simple strategies that enabled her to momentarily let go of largely meaningless distractions and engage in meaningful soul-to-soul connections.Finding balance doesn't mean giving up all technology forever. And it doesn't mean forgoing our jobs and responsibilities. What it does mean is seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction. In these pages, Rachel guides you through how to:Acknowledge the cost of your distractionMake purposeful connection with your familyGive your kids the gift of your undivided attentionSilence your inner criticLet go of the guilt from past mistakesAnd move forward with compassion and gratefulnessSo join Rachel and go hands-free. Discover what happens when you choose to open your heart--and your hands--to the possibilities of each God-given moment.
What Girls Need: How to Raise Bold, Courageous, and Resilient Women
Marisa Porges - 2020
After earning a BA in geophysics from Harvard, she fulfilled her childhood dream of flying jets off aircraft carriers for the US Navy and served as a counterterrorism expert in Afghanistan and the Obama White House. In 2016, in an unexpected move for someone whose ambitions had taken her so far from home, Porges returned to head The Baldwin School. In doing so, she began to see with great clarity how small moments and turning points in her early education gave her the tools she would eventually sharpen and deploy to excel in areas that were traditionally perceived as being part of "a man's world."What Girls Need combines lessons Porges learned along her career path with the practices she and her colleagues are developing at The Baldwin School to help today's girls cultivate the skills and traits they need to become tomorrow's leading women. The traditional means of commanding a room have often been dubbed "unfeminine" and women of previous generations were pressured to behave like a man in order to win the day. But the ways we define leadership are changing, and the women now stepping into leadership roles are mapping new paths to inhabiting traits such as grit, resilience, audacity, and self-confidence. Porges is writing to prepare the next generation to confidently hold their own later in life in whatever fields they enter, whatever challenges they face, and to celebrate and own the ways that traits which might have been undervalued in the past--empathy, collaboration, and an evolving mind-set--can and will define the future's leaders.
The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life
Anu Partanen - 2016
She found that navigating the basics of everyday life—from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare—was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first, she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension. To understand why life is so different in the U.S. and Finland, Partanen began to look closely at both.In The Nordic Theory of Everything, Partanen compares and contrasts life in the United States with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships—parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens. She debunks criticism that Nordic countries are socialist “nanny states,” revealing instead that it is we Americans who are far more enmeshed in unhealthy dependencies than we realize. As Partanen explains step by step, the Nordic approach allows citizens to enjoy more individual freedom and independence than we do.Partanen wants to open Americans’ eyes to how much better things can be—to show her beloved new country what it can learn from her homeland to reinvigorate and fulfill the promise of the American dream—to provide the opportunity to live a healthy, safe, economically secure, upwardly mobile life for everyone. Offering insights, advice, and solutions, The Nordic Theory of Everything makes a convincing argument that we can rebuild our society, rekindle our optimism, and restore true freedom to our relationships and lives.