Reading aloud offers us a chance to be fully present with our children. It also increases our kids’ academic success, inspires compassion, and fortifies them with the inner strength they need to face life’s challenges. As Sarah Mackenzie has found with her own six children, reading aloud long after kids are able to read to themselves can deepen relationships in a powerful way.Founder of the immensely popular Read-Aloud Revival podcast, Sarah knows first-hand how reading can change a child’s life. In The Read-Aloud Family, she offers the inspiration and age-appropriate book lists you need to start a read-aloud movement in your own home. From a toddler’s wonder to a teenager’s resistance, Sarah details practical strategies to make reading aloud a meaningful family ritual. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family—it has the power to change the world.

    Could there really be social and developmental advantages to this custom? Driven by a journalist’s curiosity and a new mother’s desperation for answers, Hopgood embarked on a journey to learn how other cultures approach the challenges all parents face: bedtimes, potty training, feeding, teaching, and more.Observing parents around the globe and interviewing anthropologists, educators, and child-care experts, she discovered a world of new ideas. The Chinese excel at potty training, teaching their wee ones as young as six months old. Kenyans wear their babies in colorful cloth slings—not only is it part of their cultural heritage, but strollers seem outright silly on Nairobi’s chaotic sidewalks. And the French are experts at turning their babies into healthy, adventurous eaters. Hopgood tested her discoveries on her spirited toddler, Sofia, with some enlightening results.This intimate and surprising look at the ways other cultures raise children offers parents the option of experimenting with tried and true methods from around the world and shows that there are many ways to be a good parent.

    Scientists now know that the human brain is undergoing a constant and dramatic transformation in the first years of life. During this peak time of development, every activity and experience leaves an indelible mark on your baby’s brain, for better or worse. The right kind of stimulation and nutrition will create connections in the brain that promote intelligence and raise IQ. The wrong kinds of activities and foods can stifle intellectual development, destroy brain cells, and leave your child more vulnerable to learning or behavior problems down the road. So, what can you do during the first five years to ensure that your child is primed to excel?The good news is that raising a smarter child is easier than you think. It doesn’t require making an investment in expensive equipment or high priced tutors. It’s as simple as playing the right games, serving the right foods, and maintaining a brain-enhancing environment in your home by eliminating common household toxins. In Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten by Dr. David Perlmutter, you’ll learn easy and highly effective strategies that can vastly improve your child’s brain power and reduce his or her chances of developing ADD and ADHD. For example, you can:• Stimulate Memory: Changing a component on the over-the-crib mobile every week makes the baby compare what was there before to what’s there now, reinforcing memory pathways in the brain that are critical for learning.• Spread out those shots: Schedule more frequent trips to the pediatrician for vaccinations, so that fewer shots are administered at once. Flooding the immune system with a cocktail of different vaccines can damage the nervous system. • Get rid of toxins: Protecting a child from neurotoxins found in foods, toys and even baby bottles can help preserve precious IQ points. Dr. Perlmutter provides a scientifically backed food and supplement plan for children and nursing mothers and details the many brain-building activities that you can do with your child. In addition, he reveals the numerous toys and household products that contain harmful, brain-damaging toxins and shows how to identify and combat common childhood problems like ADD and food allergies that may affect your child’s development. Your job over the first five years is to help your child build the best brain possible. With Dr. Perlmutter’s help, you can mine the countless opportunities you have each day to make your child smarter, happier and better prepared to excel.

         In Tom Boyce's extraordinary new book, he explores the "dandelion" child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the "orchid" child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile), who, given the right support, can thrive as much as, if not more than, other children.      Boyce writes of his pathfinding research as a developmental pediatrician working with troubled children in child-development research for almost four decades, and explores his major discovery that reveals how genetic make-up and environment shape behavior. He writes that certain variant genes can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors. But rather than seeing this "risk" gene as a liability, Boyce, through his daring research, has recast the way we think of human frailty, and has shown that while these "bad" genes can create problems, they can also, in the right setting and the right environment, result in producing children who not only do better than before but far exceed their peers. Orchid children, Boyce makes clear, are not failed dandelions; they are a different category of child, with special sensitivities and strengths, and need to be nurtured and taught in special ways. And in The Orchid and the Dandelion, Boyce shows us how to understand these children for their unique sensibilities, their considerable challenges, their remarkable gifts.

    They can?t make their own decisions, cope with anxiety, or handle difficult emotions without going off the deep end. Teens lack leadership skills. College students engage in deadly binge drinking. Graduates can?t even negotiate their own salaries without bringing mom or dad in for a consult. Why? Because hothouse parents raise teacup children?brittle and breakable, instead of strong and resilient. This crisis threatens to destroy the fabric of our society, to undermine both our democracy and economy. Without future leaders or daring innovators, where will we go? So what can be done?kids would play in the street until their mothers hailed them for supper, and unless a child was called into the principal?s office, parents and teachers met only at organized conferences. Nowadays, parents are involved in every aspect of their children?s lives?even going so far as using technology to monitor what their kids eat for lunch at school and accompanying their grown children on job interviews. What is going on?Hothouse parenting has hit the mainstream?with disastrous effects. Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the lumps and bumps out of life for their children, but the net effect of parental hyperconcern and scrutiny is to make kids more fragile. When the real world isn?t the discomfort-free zone kids are accustomed to, they break down in myriad ways. Why is it that those who want only the best for their kids wind up bringing out the worst in them?

    John Rosemond's A Family of Value presents a critical view of the child care literature of the past quarter century and argues for an end to overindulgent parenting and a return to the goal of instilling moral values, such as responsibility, respectfulness, and resourcefulness.

    This little book is a very appealing introduction to mindfulness meditation for children and their parents. In a simple and accessible way, it describes what mindfulness is and how mindfulness-based practices can help children calm down, become more focused, fall asleep more easily, alleviate worry, manage anger, and generally become more patient and aware. The book contains eleven practices that focus on just these scenarios, along with short examples and anecdotes throughout. Included with purchase is an audio CD with guided meditations, voiced by Myla Kabat-Zinn, who along with her husband, Jon Kabat-Zinn, popularized mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) as a therapeutic approach.

    But Josh Shipp didn’t need Harvard to know that. Once an at-risk foster kid, he was headed straight for trouble until he met the man who changed his life: Rodney, the foster parent who refused to quit on Shipp and got him to believe in himself. Now, in The Grown-Up’s Guide to Teenage Humans, Shipp shows all of us how to be that caring adult in a teenager’s life. Stressing the need for compassion, trust, and encouragement, he breaks down the phases of a teenage human from sixth to twelfth grade, examining the changes, goals, and mentality of teenagers at each stage. Shipp offers revelatory stories that take us inside the teen brain, and shares wisdom from top professionals and the most expert grown-ups. He also includes practice scripts that address tough issues, including: FORGIVENESS: What do I do when a teen has been really hurt by someone and it’s not their fault? COMMUNICATION: How do I get a teen to talk to me? They just grunt. TRUST: My teen blew it. My trust is gone. Where do we go from here? BULLYING: Help! A teen (or their friend) is being harassed. DIFFICULT AND AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS: Drugs. Death. Sex. Oh my. Written in Shipp’s playfully authoritative, no-nonsense voice, The Grown-Up’s Guide to Teenage Humans tells his story and unpacks practical strategies that can make a difference. Ultimately, it's not about shortcuts or magic words—as Shipp reminds us, it’s about investing in kids and giving them the love, time, and support they need to thrive. And that means every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story.

    TV’s Supernanny regularly captures kids wildly, unbelievably out of control. How did our families get to such a state? Child psychologist Dr. Beth Grosshans has the answer. And mothers and fathers everywhere are listening. In what is sure to become a much-discussed blockbuster, Dr. Grosshans reveals why she believes nearly a half-century of parenting advice—with its emphasis on talking, exalting children’s self-esteem, and time-outs—is largely to blame for today’s lack of discipline. Her innovative ideas and techniques challenge this prevailing culture, proving that power and authority are as essential as love and good intentions to effective parenting. She persuasively explains why kids can only grow up healthy and strong when firmly led by their parents’ experience and better judgment, and provides a clear, easy five step program to follow. She enables parents to look at themselves clearly and identify their child-rearing style; they are often shocked to discover how their own behavior has inadvertently caused an imbalance in the family’s structure. Reading Beyond Time-Out is akin to sitting with Dr. Grosshans in her clinical office—and her core truths about healthy parent-child relationships are timeless.

    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.

    Covey presents a practical and philosophical guide to solving the problems--large and small, mundane and extraordinary―that confront all families and strong communities. By offering revealing anecdotes about ordinary people as well as helpful suggestions about changing everyday behavior, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families shows how and why to have family meetings, the importance of keeping promises, how to balance individual and family needs, and how to move from dependence to interdependence. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families is an invaluable guidebook to the welfare of families everywhere.

    Easy access to the Internet and social media has erased the boundaries that protect childhood from the unsavory aspects of adult life. Parents, too, are immersed in the digital world far more deeply than they realize. Whether they are incessantly chatting or texting on their smartphones, or working in front of their computer screens, they are increasingly missing in action from their children's lives. Meanwhile, kids long for more meaningful relationships not only with each other but with the grown-ups in their lives.The benefits of having infinite information at our fingertips are extraordinary, and we are connected more than ever, but as the focus of family has turned to the glow of the screen and quick-twitch communications, parents often feel they are losing control of family life, and worse, the means for meaningful connection with the children they love. As clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair shows, these chronic distractions can have deep and lasting effects. Children don't need adults constantly, but they do need parents to provide what tech cannot: close, meaningful interactions with family and friends. Drawing on real-life stories from her clinical and consulting work, Steiner-Adair offers insight and advice that can help parents achieve greater understanding, authority, and confidence as they come up against the tech revolution unfolding in their living rooms. With fresh eyes, an open mind and the will to act on what we see and learn, Steiner-Adair argues, we have the opportunity now to nourish our families and protect and prepare our children for meaningful life in a digital age that is here to stay.

    Scott W. Cohen’s first year as a father, this book is the only one to combine two invaluable “on the job” perspectives—the doctor’s and the new parent’s.The result is a refreshingly engaging and informative guide that includes all you need to know at each age and stage of your child’s first year. Drawing on the latest medical recommendations and his experiences at home and in the office, Dr. Cohen covers everything from preparing for your baby’s arrival to introducing her to a new sibling, to those three basic functions that will come to dominate a new parent’s life. Eat, Sleep, Poop addresses questions, strategies, myths, and all aspects of your child’s development. In each instance, Dr. Cohen provides a thorough overview and a simple answer or explanation: a “common sense bottom line,” yet he doesn’t dictate. The emphasis is on doing what is medically sound and what works best for you and your baby. He also includes fact sheets, easy-to-follow diagnosis and treatment guides, and humorous daddy vs. doctor sidebars that reveal the learning curve during his fi rst year as a dad.Lively, practical, and reassuring, Eat, Sleep, Poop provides the knowledge you need to parent with confidence, to relax and enjoy baby’s fi rst year, and to raise your child with the best tool a parent can have: informed common sense.

    Pediatric nutrition experts Castle and Jacobsen simplify nutrition information, describe how children's eating habits correspond to their stage of development, provide step-by-step feeding guidance, and show parents how to relax about feeding their kids and get healthy meals on the table fast. Prepares parents by explaining what to expect at different stages of growth, whether it be picky eating, growth spurts or poor body image Helps parents work through problems such as food allergies, nutrient deficiencies and weight management, and identifying if and when they need to seek professional helpEmpowers parents to take a whole-family approach to feeding including maximizing their own health and well-being Offers fun, easy recipes parents can make for, and with, kids"Fearless Feeding" translates complicated nutrition advice into simple feeding plans for every age and stage that take the fear out of feeding kids.

    Barbara Coloroso shows these principles in action through dozens of examples -- from sibling rivalry to teenage rebellion; from common misbehaviors to substance abuse and antisocial behavior. She also explains how to parent strong-willed children, effective alternatives to time-outs, bribes, and threats, and how to help kids resolve disputes and serious injustices such as bullying.Filled with practical suggestions for handling the ordinary and extraordinary tribulations of growing up, kids are worth it! helps you help your children grow into responsible, resilient, resourceful adults -- not because you tell them to, but because they want to.