What Do You Say?: How to Talk with Kids to Build Stress Tolerance, Motivation, and a Happy Home


Ned Johnson - 2021
    And the conversations that you wish you could have--ones fueled by your desire to see your kid not just safe and healthy, but passionately engaged--suddenly feel nearly impossible to execute. The good news is that effective communication can be cultivated, learned, and taught. And as you get better at this, so will your kids.Johnson and Stixrud have 60 years combined experience talking to kids one-on-one, and the most common question they get when out speaking to parents and educators is: What do you say? While many adults understand the importance and power of the philosophies behind the books that dominate the parenting bestseller list, parents are often left wondering how to put those concepts into action. In What Do You Say?, Johnson and Stixrud show how to engage in respectful and effective dialogue, beginning with defining and demonstrating the basic principles of listening and speaking. Then they show new ways to handle specific, thorny topics of the sort that usually end in parent/kid standoffs: delivering constructive feedback to kids; discussing boundaries around technology; explaining sleep and their brains; the anxiety of current events; and family problem-solving. hat Do You Say? is a manual and map that will immediately transform parents' ability to navigate complex terrain and train their minds and hearts to communicate ever more successfully.

Beyond the Tiger Mom: East-West Parenting for the Global Age


Maya Thiagarajan - 2016
    In this research-backed guide, she examines each of the "tiger mother" stereotypes and goes beneath the surface to discover what happens in Asian parenting households. How do Asian parents think about childhood, family, and education and what can Western parents learn from them? And what benefits does a traditional Western upbringing have that Asian parents, too, may want to consider? Some of the takeaways from this parenting book include:The best of Asian parenting practices — such as how to teach children math, or raise tech-healthy kidsTeaching your child to broaden his or her attention spanFinding the right balance between work and play, while including family timeHelping your child see failure as a learning experienceAnd many, many more insightsEach chapter offers interviews with hundreds of Asian parents and kids and ends with a "How To" section of specific tips for Asian and Western parents both to aid childhood education and development inside and outside the classroom. Woven into this narrative are her reflections on teaching and parenting in locations that span the East and West. In this book, Thiagarajan synthesizes an extensive body of research on child education and Asian parenting both to provide accessible and practical guidelines for parents.

102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum


Cathy Duffy - 2014
    Widely-recognized curriculum expert Cathy Duffy walks you through the curriculum selection process: goal setting, figuring out which educational approach to use, developing your own philosophy of education, determining your teaching style, and identifying your children's learning styles. "At-a-glance" charts highlight key features of each Top Pick selection. Scanning through the charts allows you to quickly identify products likely to be of interest. The charts are followed by extensive reviews of each of Cathy's Top Picks. This is an updated and extensively revised edition of 101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.

Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most


Steven Johnson - 2018
    So why do we know so little about how to get them right?Big, life-altering decisions matter so much more than the decisions we make every day, and they're also the most difficult: where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, whether to start a company, how to end a war. There's no one-size-fits-all approach for addressing these kinds of conundrums. Steven Johnson's classic Where Good Ideas Come From inspired creative people all over the world with new ways of thinking about innovation. In Farsighted, he uncovers powerful tools for honing the important skill of complex decision-making. While you can't model a once-in-a-lifetime choice, you can model the deliberative tactics of expert decision-makers. These experts aren't just the master strategists running major companies or negotiating high-level diplomacy. They're the novelists who draw out the complexity of their characters' inner lives, the city officials who secure long-term water supplies, and the scientists who reckon with future challenges most of us haven't even imagined. The smartest decision-makers don't go with their guts. Their success relies on having a future-oriented approach and the ability to consider all their options in a creative, productive way. Through compelling stories that reveal surprising insights, Johnson explains how we can most effectively approach the choices that can chart the course of a life, an organization, or a civilization. Farsighted will help you imagine your possible futures and appreciate the subtle intelligence of the choices that shaped our broader social history.

Lead with Literacy: A Pirate Leader's Guide to Developing a Culture of Readers


Mandy Ellis - 2018
    

The Excellent 11: Qualities Teachers and Parents Use to Motivate, Inspire, and Educate Children


Ron Clark - 2004
    And when his Oprah appearance shot the book onto the New York Times bestseller list, he kept the heat on. We can expect the same tenacious commitment to promoting his follow-up book, The Excellent 11.The Excellent 11 contains eleven sections, with each one focusing on a theme directly related to teaching and raising children. Ron Clark draws from his own experience to give advice, telling personal stories that demonstrate the significance of each theme within the learning environment--an environment that extends beyond the classroom and into the larger world. Using themes ranging from Adventure, Ingenuity, and Humor to Dedication, Creativity, and Love, Clark provides a road map for both parents and teachers who want to enrich their children's learning experiences.

The End of American Childhood: A History of Parenting from Life on the Frontier to the Managed Child


Paula S. Fass - 2016
    Renowned historian Paula Fass shows how, since the beginning of the American republic, independence, self-definition, and individual success have informed Americans' attitudes toward children. But as parents today hover over every detail of their children's lives, are the qualities that once made American childhood special still desired or possible? Placing the experiences of children and parents against the backdrop of social, political, and cultural shifts, Fass challenges Americans to reconnect with the beliefs that set the American understanding of childhood apart from the rest of the world.Fass examines how freer relationships between American children and parents transformed the national culture, altered generational relationships among immigrants, helped create a new science of child development, and promoted a revolution in modern schooling. She looks at the childhoods of icons including Margaret Mead and Ulysses S. Grant--who, as an eleven-year-old, was in charge of his father's fields and explored his rural Ohio countryside. Fass also features less well-known children like ten-year-old Rose Cohen, who worked in the drudgery of nineteenth-century factories. Bringing readers into the present, Fass argues that current American conditions and policies have made adolescence socially irrelevant and altered children's road to maturity, while parental oversight threatens children's competence and initiative.Showing how American parenting has been firmly linked to historical changes, The End of American Childhood considers what implications this might hold for the nation's future.

The The MindUP Curriculum: Grades PreK–2: Brain-Focused Strategies for Learning—and Living


Hawn Foundation - 2011
    Each lesson offers easy strategies for helping students focus their attention, improve their self-regulation skills, build resilience to stress, and develop a positive mind-set in both school and life. The lessons fit easily into any schedule and require minimal preparation. Classroom management tips and content-area activities help you extend the benefits of MindUP throughout your day, week, and year!Includes a full-color, innovative teaching poster with fascinating facts about the brain!

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently


Heidi Grant Halvorson - 2011
    In this short, provocative, and useful HBR Single, motivational psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson translates the psychological secrets of these winning human beings for your use. Halvorson expands on her immensely popular blog post to give more detail on each of her nine suggested actions-from getting specific about goals and aggressively monitoring your achievements to understanding the importance of having "grit." By emphasizing what successful people do consistently and effectively, Halvorson provides the path to help you accomplish your goals, once and for all.

Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul


Stuart M. Brown Jr. - 2009
    Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing with glee across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless and all-consuming. And, most important, it’s fun. As we become adults, taking time to play feels like a guilty pleasure—a distraction from “real” work and life. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. In fact, our ability to play throughout life is the single most important factor in determining our success and happiness. Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six thousand “play histories” of humans from all walks of life—from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve, and more. Play is hardwired into our brains—it is the mechanism by which we become resilient, smart, and adaptable people. Beyond play’s role in our personal fulfillment, its benefits have profound implications for child development and the way we parent, education and social policy, business innovation, productivity, and even the future of our society. From new research suggesting the direct role of three-dimensional-object play in shaping our brains to animal studies showing the startling effects of the lack of play, Brown provides a sweeping look at the latest breakthroughs in our understanding of the importance of this behavior. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.

Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It


Jane M. Healy - 1990
    Healy, Ph.D., examines how television, video games, and other components of popular culture compromise our children's ability to concentrate and to absorb and analyze information. Drawing on neuropsychological research and an analysis of current educational practices, Healy presents in clear, understandable language: -- How growing brains are physically shaped by experience -- Why television programs -- even supposedly educational shows like Sesame Street -- develop "habits of mind" that place children at a disadvantage in school -- Why increasing numbers of children are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder -- How parents and teachers can make a critical difference by making children good learners from the day they are born

The Insulin Resistance Solution


Rob Thompson - 2016
    But where should you start? Americans are slowly becoming ill from impaired glucose metabolism that manifests itself as a debilitating illness or chronic condition. You may try to manage one problem after another– diuretics to treat blood pressure, statins to lower cholesterol, metformin and insulin to treat diabetes--without fully realizing that the root of these issues is insulin resistance which revs up inflammation, damages the immune system, and disrupts the whole hormonal/chemical system in the body.It's time to feel better and get healthy by following a simple step-by-step plan to a healthy lifestyle. Rob Thompson, MD and Dana Carpender create the ultimate dream team in your journey to wellness.The Insulin Resistance Solution offers a step-by-step plan and 75 recipes for reversing even the most stubborn insulin resistance.The Program:- Reduce Your Body's Demand for Insulin: This is the stumbling block of many other plans/doctor recommendations. Even "healthy" and "moderate" carb intake can continue to fuel insulin resistance.- Fat is Not the Enemy: Stop Worrying about Fat, Cholesterol, and Salt- Exercise--the RIGHT way:- Use Carb Blockers: Eat and Supplement to Slow Glucose Digestion and Lower Insulin Levels- Safe, Effective Medication

How to Teach Your Baby Math


Glenn Doman - 1979
    How To Teach Your Baby To Read shows just how easy it is to teach a young child to read, while How To Teach Your Baby Math presents the simple steps for teaching mathematics through the development of thinking and reasoning skills. Both books explain how to begin and expand each program, how to make and organize necessary materials, and how to more fully develop your child's reading and math potential.How to Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge shows how simple it is to develop a program that cultivates a young child's awareness and understanding of the arts, science, and nature--to recognize the insects in the garden, to learn about the countries of the world, to discover the beauty of a Van Gogh painting, and much more. How To Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence provides a comprehensive program for teaching your young child how to read, to understand mathematics, and to literally multiply his or her overall learning potential in preparation for a lifetime of success.The Gentle Revolution Series:The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential has been successfully serving children and teaching parents for five decades. Its goal has been to significantly improve the intellectual, physical, and social development of all children. The groundbreaking methods and techniques of The Institutes have set the standards in early childhood education. As a result, the books written by Glenn Doman, founder of this organization, have become the all-time best-selling parenting series in the United States and the world.

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers


Gordon Neufeld - 2004
    This “peer orientation” undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated, and being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.  Hold On to Your Kids explains the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrates ways to “reattach” to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back your children’s loyalty and love. This updated edition also specifically addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media. By helping to reawaken instincts innate to us all, Neufeld and Maté will empower parents to be what nature intended: a true source of contact, security, and warmth for their children.

And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School


Judith Warner - 2020
    Some of this is inevitable; there are intrinsic challenges to early adolescence. But these years are harder than they need to be, and Judith Warner believes adults are complicit.With piercing insight and compassion, Warner walks us through a new understanding of the role that middle school plays in all our lives. She argues that today's helicopter parents are overly concerned with status and achievement--in some ways a residual effect of their own middle-school experiences--and that this is worsening the self-consciousness, self-absorption, and social "sorting" so typical of early adolescence.Tracing a century of research on middle childhood and bringing together the voices of social scientists, psychologists, educators, and parents, Warner shows how adults can be moral role models for children, making them more empathetic, caring, and resilient. She encourages us to start treating middle-schoolers as the complex people they are, holding them to high standards of kindness, and helping them see one another as more than "jocks and mean girls, nerds and sluts."Part cultural critique and part call to action, this essential book unpacks one of life's most formative periods and shows how we can help our children not only survive it, but thrive.