Our Kids

"The bestselling author of Bowling Alone offers [an] ... examination of the American Dream in crisis--how and why opportunities for upward mobility are diminishing, jeopardizing the prospects of an ever larger segment of Americans"--

A psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues joins forces with a physician and bestselling author to tackle one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time -- peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident -- as do the solutions. Hold On to Your Kids will restore parenting to its natural intuitive basis and the parent-child relationship to its rightful preeminence. The concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids will empower parents to satisfy their children’s inborn need to find direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth. Something has changed. One can sense it, one can feel it, just not find the words for it. Children are not quite the same as we remember being. They seem less likely to take their cues from adults, less inclined to please those in charge, less afraid of getting into trouble. Parenting, too, seems to have changed. Our parents seemed more confident, more certain of themselves and had more impact on us, for better or for worse. For many, parenting does not feel natural. Adults through the ages have complained about children being less respectful of their elders and more difficult to manage than preceding generations, but could it be that this time it is for real? -- from Hold On to Your Kids

Our public schools are in danger of collapse, and if they do, we will all pay the price Healthy public schools are essential for a healthy economy and creating informed citizens. But we are neglecting our schools in a perversely malicious way: making impossible demands on them, strangling them financially, creating trivial changes for the sake of ideology, avoiding necessary changes, and just plain ignoring them. In this forcefully argued and convincing book, education expert Charles Ungerleider makes our situation plain. Canadians have never placed a higher value on education, but if we do not do something about public schools now, we may lose the benefits that they provide and miss the opportunity to fix them. Drawing on the latest research and using examples from across the country, Ungerleider describes what’s right and what’s wrong about our public schools system and provides solutions for making them a lot better. He looks at the conflict between “traditional” and “progressive” approaches to education. He argues that the public school curriculum has become bloated, fragmented, and mired in trivia. He examines the effects of the changing family and the influence on children of television, the Internet, video games, and their peers. He discusses the work of teachers and teachers’ unions, the changes in public school finance and governance, and the issue of accountability. And he takes on the issue of school choice and competition, where, more than anywhere else, rhetoric prevails over reason.

The author of The Explosive Child counsels parents and educators on how to best safeguard the interests of children with behavioral, emotional, and social challenges, in a guide that identifies the misunderstandings and practices that are contributing to a growing number of challenged student failures. 60,000 first printing.

Here is a fresh look at the age-old role of parenting.Loving Our Kids on Purpose brings the principles of the Kingdom of God and revival into our strategy as parents. 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us that Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Most parenting approaches train children to learn to accept being controlled by well meaning parents and adults. Unfortunately, God is not going to control us as we gain independence from our parents.We must learn to control ourselves.This book will teach parents to train their children to manage their freedoms and protect their important heart to heart relationships.

"How do you tell that a country has died? ... Peter Hitchens describes and regrets the abolition of Britain. In the years since Peter Hitchens first wrote The Abolition of Britain, he argues, there has been an acceleration in the decay of society and culture. Fewer people read; universities have become less and less free; more churches are closing; language has become more homogenised; the city skyline is emblematic of the triumph of Mammon; the monarchy is merely hanging on and immigration is at an unprecedented and unsustainable level, a fact accepted even by those who first welcomed its growth. Hitchens, a former revolutionary Marxist, is amazed and amused by the way in which the nominal Conservative Party has now embraced culturally and socially revolutionary ideas, especially about the family, sexual politics and education, which he would have thought ambitious in his days as a 1960s Trotskyist. As he writes, 'my only concern now is to ensure that others, in some unimaginable future, will be able to find at least one voice which will explain to them how one of the fairest, kindest civilisations ever to have existed on earth ... should in so short a time have wasted its birthright and thrown away its gifts'."--Publisher description.

Completely revised and updated, a much-needed call to action for every parent, teacher, and citizen to help our children and stop the wave of killing and violence gripping America's youth Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine. Thereis no bigger or more important issue in America than youth violence. Kids, some as young as ten years old, take up arms with the intention to murder. Why is this happening? Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano believe the root cause is the steady diet of violent entertainment kids see on TV, in movies, and in the video games they play—witnessing hundreds of violent images a day. Offering incontrovertible evidence based on recent scientific studies and research, they posit that this media is not just conditioning children to be violent and see killing as acceptable but teaching them the mechanics of killing as well. Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill supplies the statistics, interprets the copious research that exists on the subject, and suggests the many ways to make a difference in your home, at school, in your community, in the courts, and in the larger world. In using this book, parents, educators, social-service workers, youth advocates, and anyone interested in the welfare of our children will have a solid foundation for effective action and prevention of future Columbines, Jonesboros, and Newtowns.

From baby pictures in the cloud to a high school's digital surveillance system: how adults unwittingly compromise children's privacy online. Our children's first digital footprints are made before they can walk—even before they are born—as parents use fertility apps to aid conception, post ultrasound images, and share their baby's hospital mug shot. Then, in rapid succession come terabytes of baby pictures stored in the cloud, digital baby monitors with built-in artificial intelligence, and real-time updates from daycare. When school starts, there are cafeteria cards that catalog food purchases, bus passes that track when kids are on and off the bus, electronic health records in the nurse's office, and a school surveillance system that has eyes everywhere. Unwittingly, parents, teachers, and other trusted adults are compiling digital dossiers for children that could be available to everyone—friends, employers, law enforcement—forever. In this incisive book, Leah Plunkett examines the implications of “sharenthood”—adults' excessive digital sharing of children's data. She outlines the mistakes adults make with kids' private information, the risks that result, and the legal system that enables “sharenting.” Plunkett describes various modes of sharenting—including “commercial sharenting,” efforts by parents to use their families' private experiences to make money—and unpacks the faulty assumptions made by our legal system about children, parents, and privacy. She proposes a “thought compass” to guide adults in their decision making about children's digital data: play, forget, connect, and respect. Enshrining every false step and bad choice, Plunkett argues, can rob children of their chance to explore and learn lessons. The Internet needs to forget. We need to remember.