Bringing Up Boys


James C. Dobson - 2001
    With so much confusion about the role of men in our society, it's no wonder so many parents and teachers are at a loss about how to bring up boys. Our culture has vilified masculinity and, as a result, boys are suffering. Parents, teachers, and others involved in shaping the character of boys have lots of questions. In "Bringing Up Boys, " Dr. Dobson tackles these questions and offers advice and encouragement based on a firm foundation of biblical principles.

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think


Bryan Caplan - 2011
    Parents invest more time and money in their kids than ever, but the shocking lesson of twin and adoption research is that upbringing is much less important than genetics in the long run. These revelations have surprising implications for how we parent and how we spend time with our kids. The big lesson: Mold your kids less and enjoy your life more. Your kids will still turn out fine.Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is a book of practical big ideas. How can parents be happier? What can they change--and what do they need to just accept? Which of their worries can parents safely forget? Above all, what is the right number of kids for you to have? You'll never see kids or parenthood the same way again.

The Natural Baby Sleep Solution: Use Your Child's Internal Sleep Rhythms for Better Nights and Naps


Polly Moore - 2016
    The method is simple, foolproof, and yields long-lasting results: truly restful daytime naps (which also gives an infant a head start on cognitive development and emotional intelligence) and consistent nighttime sleep—as beneficial for parents as it is for the baby.For babies aged two weeks to one yearLessons in sleep independence and solutions to common problems, such as your baby waking up too early, getting a second wind before bedtime, confusing day and night, and moreIncludes a guided journal for recording your baby’s sleep signals and keeping track of naps and bedtimesA simple program for sleep that delivers foolproof results.

Strange Situation: A Mother's Journey Into the Science of Attachment


Bethany Saltman - 2020
    . . searingly honest, brazenly fresh, and startlingly rich."--Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday DemonWhen professional researcher and writer Bethany Saltman gave birth to her daughter, Azalea, she loved her deeply but felt as if something was missing. Looking back at her lonely childhood, dangerous teenage years, and love-addicted early adulthood, Saltman thought maybe she was broken.Then she discovered the science of attachment, the field of psychology that explores the question of why--from an evolutionary point of view--love exists between parents and children. Saltman went on a ten-year journey visiting labs, archives, and training sessions, while learning the meaning of "delight" from Mary Ainsworth, one of psychology's most important but unsung researchers, who died in 1999.Saltman went deep into the history and findings from Ainsworth's famous laboratory procedure, the Strange Situation, which, like an X-ray, is still used today by scientists around the world to catch a glimpse of the internal workings of attachment. In this simple twenty-minute procedure, a baby and a caregiver enter an ordinary room with two chairs and some toys. During a series of comings and goings, a trained observer studies the minutiae of the pair's back-and-forth with each other.Through the science of attachment, what Saltman discovered was a radical departure from everything she thought she knew--about love and about her own family, her story, and herself. She was far from broken--she saw that love is too powerful to ever break.Strange Situation is a scientific, lyrical, life-affirming exploration of love. Not only will readers be taken on an emotional ride through one mother's reckoning with her own past and her family's future, but they will also be given the tools with which to better understand their own life histories and their relationships today.

Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting: Five Strategies That End the Daily Battles and Get Kids to Listen the First Time


Noel Janis-Norton - 2013
    There is a better way.Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting brings the joy back into family life and helps parents to raise confident, responsible adults. Based on her forty-plus years of experience, behavioral specialist Noël Janis-Norton outlines a clear, step-by-step plan that will help any parent raise a child who is cooperative and considerate, confident and self-reliant. Transform your family life with these five strategies: Descriptive Praise, Preparing for Success, Reflective Listening, Never Ask Twice and Rewards and Consequences. You’ll begin to see results almost immediately: • Kids start cooperating the first time you ask • Mornings, bedtimes, mealtimes and homework all become easier • Even very resistant kids start saying” yes” instead of “no” Full of examples and real stories from parents, this book gives you the complete tool-kit to achieve Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting.

Tough Guys and Drama Queens: How Not to Get Blindsided by Your Child's Teen Years


Mark Gregston - 2012
    Are you ready for your child's teen years?If you've ever lain awake at night wondering what might be around the corner of your child's adolescence, this book is for you! After more than thirty-eight years of working with more than 2,500 years, Mark Gregston, founder of heartlight, a Christian residential counseling center, introduces Tough Guys and Drama Queens — a must-read "how-to" book for parents of pre-teens and teens with time-tested, biblical techniques to guide you  through these unavoidably challenging years.Mark helps parents realize that some natural parenting approaches are actually counter-productive and therefore totally ineffective.In place of those, he offers tried and true wisdom on the vital importance of relationship, forgiveness, and explains how conflict is actually the precursor to change.Everyday your child is bombarded by highly sexualized culture and over-exposed to words and images that can influence them beyond your reach.your connection to them during these years is critical as is your response to tough issues such as appearance, performance, authority and respect, boundaries, and many more.

Let the Children Worship


Jason Helopoulos - 2016
    He points out how the struggles are temporary - whereas the blessings can be eternal.

The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More


Bruce Feiler - 2013
    The result is a funny and thought-provoking playbook for contemporary families, with more than 200 useful strategies, including: the right way to have family dinner, what your mother never told you about sex (but should have), and why you should always have two women present in difficult conversations… Timely, compassionate, and filled with practical tips and wise advice, Bruce Feiler’s The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More should be required reading for all parents.

Mom's House, Dad's House: Making Two Homes for Your Child


Isolina Ricci - 1982
    presents this definitive and newly updated guide to divorce and making shared custody work for parents and children.The ground-breaking classic, Mom’s House, Dad’s House, has become the standard for two generations of divorcing parents, and includes examples, self-tests, checklists, tools, and guidelines to help separated moms and dads with the legal, emotional, and financial issues they will encounter as they work to create happy and stable homes. This comprehensive guide looks anew at the needs of all family members with creative options and common-sense advice, including: * The map to a “decent divorce” and two happy homes * Helping children of divorce with age-specific advice * Negotiating Parental Agreements and custody arrangements * Breaking away from “negative intimacy” with a difficult ex-husband or ex-wife * Sidestepping destructive myths about divorce (and marriage) * Handling long-distance parenting and parenting alone With Mom’s House, Dad’s House, parents will learn how to help their children heal and find a sense of continuity, security, and stability throughout the divorce process and in any custody situation.

Open Adoption Experience: Complete Guide for Adoptive and Birth Families - From Making the Decision Throug


Lois Ruskai Melina - 1993
    Two leading experts provide an authoritative and reassuring guide to the issues and concerns of adoptive and birth families through all stages of the open adoption relationship.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child


Anthony M. Esolen - 2010
    This practical, insightful book is essential reading for any parent.

Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids -- And How to Break the Trance


Nicholas Kardaras - 2016
    Like a virtual scourge, the illuminated glowing faces―the Glow Kids―are multiplying. But at what cost? Is this just a harmless indulgence or fad like some sort of digital hula-hoop? Some say that glowing screens might even be good for kids―a form of interactive educational tool.Don’t believe it.In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology―more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity―has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation. Brain imaging research is showing that stimulating glowing screens are as dopaminergic (dopamine activating) to the brain’s pleasure center as sex. And a growing mountain of clinical research correlates screen tech with disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis. Most shocking of all, recent brain imaging studies conclusively show that excessive screen exposure can neurologically damage a young person’s developing brain in the same way that cocaine addiction can.Kardaras will dive into the sociological, psychological, cultural, and economic factors involved in the global tech epidemic with one major goal: to explore the effect all of our wonderful shiny new technology is having on kids. Glow Kids also includes an opt-out letter and a "quiz" for parents in the back of the book.

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity


Andrew Solomon - 2012
    He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life.

Kid Wrangling: Real Guide to Caring for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers


Kaz Cooke - 2004
    Featuring solid advice from experts, including real moms and dads, KIDWRANGLING is funny, reassuring, practical, and completely devoid of judgmental guruspeak about the right way to do things. The range of great solutions for new parents includes:Babies *getting through the first weeks * boobs * bottles * sleeping *crying * coping * new mom and newborn health * bonding * the blues * mom'¬?s post-baby body * equipment * first food * teething * pacifiersToddlers and Little Kids (Ages 3 to 5) * using the toilet * family food * teaching kids how to behave * child care * dealing with common illnesses * exercise * getting ready for schoolPlus * emotional and physical development 0 to 5 * immunization * safety * what dads need to know * birthday parties and presents * being at home * paid work * travel * best-ever lists of where to go for extra help * games, toys, and activities * and much moreNot to mention the hilarious How to Be Perfect Routine ("Adjust push-up bras, exfoliate feet, clean up vomit")

Touchpoints 3 to 6


T. Berry Brazelton - 2001
    Brazelton's wisdom. But all "Brazelton babies" grow up. Now at last, the internationally famous pediatrician, in collaboration with an eminent child psychiatrist, has brought his unique insights to the "magic" preschool and first-grade years.Through delightful profiles of four very different children, the authors apply the touchpoints theory (following the pattern of growth-new challenge-reegression-recharging-and renewed growth) to each of the great cognitive, behavioral, and emotional leaps that occur from age three to six. In the second, alphabetical, half of the book they offer precious guidance to parents facing contemporary pressures and stresses, such as how to keep a child safe without instilling fear, countering the electronic barrage of violent games and marketing aimed at children, coping successfully with varied family configurations, over-scheduling, competition, and many other vital issues today. A Merloyd Lawrence Book