Customer Reviews

How to Mess Up Your Child's Life: Proven Strategies & Practical Tips

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Written to equip every parent to be a master at creating the perfect messed up kid, granting each parent the ability to destroy their child mind, body and soul. Olivia and Kurt Bruner's book How To Mess Up Your Child's Life is an intensely humours book on how to create and perfect the kid who we've all seen, the one we've wished was our own: the one who constantly feels entitled to all his birthday gifts and does not know the words 'thank you', the little girl who throws a fit to get her way and her parents happily give in, the grown man who pushes an elderly woman out of his way because he needs to get there first. Yes, we have all seen and admired these people, and wished for them in our own lives and now with the genius help of Oliver and Kurt Bruner you too can have children who are the envy of messed up!

Not really, no. Well you could...but I am guessing you got the sarcasm in those above lines (you did right??) So, this book is genius, but because it is funny, filled with truth and very insightful, on what NOT to do just as much as on what TO do. I have read Doctor Dobson, and other such gurus before, but this book is by far my favourite parenting book to date. It really is displayed and explained in a way that makes sense! Olivia and Kurt break down the chapters into "the seven deadly sins" of which they explain all other sins stem out of. At the end of each chapter there is are activities to reinforce the attitudes in your children, movies to watch to help them understand, and goofy games and things to do as a family to help you all grasp the darkness of each sin.

Just so you get a taste, I'll list the chapters:

Chapter One: Nurturing an Enormous Ego

(Deadly Sin: Pride)

Chapter Two: Inspiring Lasting Discontent

(Deadly Sin: Envy)

Chapter Three: Encouraging an Expressive Temper

(Deadly Sin: Anger)

Chapter Four: Feeding a Voracious Appetite

(Deadly Sin: Gluttony)

Chapter Five: Discouraging Frivolous Generosity

(Deadly Sin: Greed)

Chapter Six: Fostering Total Dependence

(Deadly Sin: Sloth)

Chapter Seven: Condoning Sensual Gratification

(Deadly Sin: Lust)

Chapter Eight: Instilling Faith

(Whatever You Do, Don't!)

Personally I got more out of this book in understanding kids, and myself than any other book. I loved the style and thought it was really funny. How To Mess Up Your Child's Life is written in a way that really made sense to me and to which I could relate to. It wasn't all about creating the perfect child, making him perfect in all aspects. It is more a molding and modeling and allowing the growth to be the fruit rather than what was demanded. I feel it attacks the key issues and leaves the rest. As a parent I am constantly working on choosing the battles that are actually important (versus the fact that a child is just really getting on my nerves) and Olivia and Kent really hit it home in this one. Highly recommended.

[...]

Your baby is born, you are instantly in love and your mind is exploding as you count the fingers and toes and imagine what kind of future this child will have.You have the books, the dreams and imagine a world of perfection for this baby.

Your thoughts...

Perhaps this child will be self-centered. Would that not be lovely?

Maybe they will be glued to their hand-held gaming device from dusk to dawn nary to give you a sideways glance. He/she would be out of your hair, would they not?

Better still... why not give them everything their heart desires allowing them the freedom to make all of their own choices, experiencing everything life has to give freely. After all, there are things `we all did' when we were younger and since `they are going to do it anyway', what's the point of saying anything?

Ah, the dreams we have.

Out of all the books that one reads as their child grows, I encourage you to seek this `guidebook', How to MESS UP Your Child's Life: Proven Strategies and Practical Tips by Olivia and Kurt Bruner. (Authors of Playstation Nation)

Olivia and Kurt Bruner present very `tongue in cheek' (downright hilarious) views on ways that you can hinder your child's journey into becoming a successful, Christian adult by illustrating things we do as parents not having the foresight to see how the future will play out. They use a parallel between parental choices and the `Seven Deadlies'. You may be thinking that it's going well enough in your home and the examples above are merely the extremes. I will give you that-they are the extremes. What you need to know more are the issues that happen daily in your parenting-the unnoticeables.

You will not be disappointed by this book. And those dreams-the real ones, can only stand to benefit from adding this to your collection of Christian parenting books.

I really like this book. It has great examples of activities to do with your kids to help them get the idea. It's focus is more on older children, so I did not find it extremely helpful for us right now with a one year old. We will definitely use it in the future. It is important to us to learn how to cultivate a love for God and others in our children, and this book is a great tool for us to teach them.