Parenting With Reason

Sometimes it feels as though everybody has an opinion on how you should bring up your child – and no two people seem to agree on how it should be done for the best! Parenting with Reason cuts through the masses of confusing and often contradictory advice about parenting by providing hard evidence to back up the tough decisions all parents face. Unlike many self-help guides to parenting which are based on the opinion of one author, this book is based on many findings from scientific research, giving you a trustworthy, ‘evidence-based’ guide to help see your way through parenting dilemmas. Written by a clinical psychologist, a developmental psychologist and a doctor of family medicine, the book looks at pressing questions such as: 'What should I do when my child acts up?', 'How can I get my baby to sleep through the night?' and 'How do I begin to toilet-train my child?' The authors, who are also parents themselves, debunk common myths about parenting, such as the notion that a healthy baby needs to be able to breastfeed at will throughout the night, or the idea that children who are adopted need specialized counselling. They also cover issues such as how children might be affected by seeing violence on television, how a parent’s psychological health can affect their child, what the scientific evidence is for and against circumcision, and how divorce and adoption affect a child’s development. The end of each chapter gives you 'The Bottom Line', a handy summary of the key points of each issue. This book is ideal for new or prospective parents, and paediatricians, family health providers and anyone who works with children and their parents will also find the book’s objective, scientific approach useful in their work.

The author of Punished by Rewards and The Schools Our Children Deserve returns with a provocative challenge to the conventional ways of raising children. Kohn argues that all children have the need to be loved unconditionally, yet conventional approaches to parenting, such as punishment and reward, teach children that they are loved only when they please and impress parents. Kohn cites powerful research detailing the damage this can cause. Unconditional Parenting pushes parents to question their ideas of parenting and offers practical solutions to problems.

We've needlessly turned parenting into an unpleasant chore. 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.

Sometimes in our childhood, we fantasize about our future parenting skills and how we will be the ultimate mom or dad. These grand visions rarely survive the first few months of our own journey as parents-once that specter of self-will first manifests in our new bundle of joy. We quickly learn that while parenting is infinitely rewarding and a wonderful blessing, it is also a difficult, sometimes confusing, often thankless responsibility. We find ourselves wishing for a clear, simple, and preferably, illustrated instruction manual. In Purposeful and Persistent Parenting, John and Cindy Raquet seek to share, through encouraging examples of their journey toward God-honoring parenthood, the lessons they learned in raising their eight children. With personal stories of triumph and failure, goal-setting (and resetting), many practical tips, and a little blue tape, they hope that this work will be a valuable companion on your own adventure in parenting and instrumental in helping you to truly enjoy the work of raising your children.

This is a rich common-sense manual on "evidence-based parenting." Grounded in the best research available, it provides parents with the evidence to help them make the "tough parenting decisions" that they face.

The shocking treatise that was a bestselling international media sensation upon its 2007 publication in France now makes its eagerly anticipated English-language debut. A mother of two herself, Maier makes her deadly serious, if at times laugh-out-loud-funny, argument with all the unbridled force of her famously wicked intellect. In forty to-the-point, impressively erudite chapters drawing on the realms of history, child psychology, politics, and the environment, Maier effortlessly skewers the idealized notion of parenthood as a natural and beautiful endeavour. Enough with this “baby-mania” that is plaguing modern society, says Maier, it’s nothing but brainwashing. Are you prepared to give up your free time, dinners with friends, spontaneous romantic getaways, and even the luxury of uninterrupted thought for the “vicious little dwarves” that will treat you like their servant, cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and end up resenting you? Speaking to the still “child-free”, to fellow suffering parents, and to adamant procreationists alike, No Kids is a controversial, thought-provoking, and undeniably entertaining read. Reasons to avoid having kids: •You will lose touch with your friends •Your sex life will be over •Children cost a fortune • Child-rearing is endless drudgery •Vacations will be nightmares •You’ll lose your identity and become just “mom” or “dad” •Your children will become mindless drones of capitalism •The planet’s already overcrowded •Your children will inevitably disappoint you

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.