Instead of Medicating and Punishing: Healing the causes of our children's acting-out behavior by parenting and educating the way nature intended [Paperback]

Laurie A. Couture (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2008

Parents in our culture today are bombarded by "experts" offering "tools," "programs," diagnoses," treatments" and medications. Why doesn't any of it seem to help our children act and feel better? With this book parents will learn: . Children's brains are wired from conception through adolescence to need certain parenting and educational conditions that are different from almost everything that we have grown up with or have learned from our culture. . What people in peaceful tribal cultures have known about parenting and education for millennia . How to heal their children's mental health, behavioral and learning problems at the root causes, resulting in genuine improvements in family happiness. "Instead of Medicating and Punishing" is for parents of children of all ages, from pregnancy through late adolescence. It is for parents of children who have mild, moderate or severe mental health, learning or behavioral problems and also addresses the special needs of adoptive children.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Laurie A. Couture has done an excellent job in assembling information on healthy children, families and schools from which healthy, productive and peaceful societies develop. This material is well-known to a concerned minority of professional scientists and clinicians, but typically is obscured or distorted in mass-media, or is found only in lesser-known scientific journals and complex books. A common coherent text for parents and educators has been needed, and Ms. Couture has taken on this task. Every parent, teacher, mental health professional, social worker, nurse and child advocate should read this book!" --James DeMeo, Ph.D., Author, Saharasia

"Laurie A. Couture has done an excellent job in assembling information on healthy children, families and schools from which healthy, productive and peaceful societies develop. This material is well-known to a concerned minority of professional scientists and clinicians, but typically is obscured or distorted in mass-media, or is found only in lesser-known scientific journals and complex books. A common coherent text for parents and educators has been needed, and Ms. Couture has taken on this task. Every parent, teacher, mental health professional, social worker, nurse and child advocate should read this book!" --James DeMeo, Ph.D., Author, Saharasia --James DeMeo, Ph.D., Author, Saharasia

Review

"There's a quiet but bold revolution afoot. You won't see it on the news, or heralded by dramatic marches upon Washington. It's not represented by lobby groups or debated in Senate. But it's gradually weaving its way into the daily lives of families all over the world. In small, ordinary, but heroic ways, mothers and fathers are rejecting the culturally-endorsed style of parenting that denies children their basic need for bonding and non-violence. Instead, they're choosing to be responsive to those needs and by doing so, are forging a new, more peaceful society. Laurie A. Couture gives a clear voice to this new movement and her book gives us straightforward guidance. By questioning the cultural assumptions made around children and their needs--from birth, to discipline, to education--she shed's light on a kind of "insanity" that modern society has taken on. This insanity results in symptoms of collective childhood distress expressed in such phenomena as ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, depression and anxiety. And in response, Laurie very systematically gives us a cure for this insanity: Bonding and attachment. Drawing on the time-tested ancient wisdom of peaceful Indigenous cultures and combining that with respected neurobiological research, Laurie gives us a blueprint for raising children through connection instead of disconnection, through love instead of fear... Laurie A. Couture is not just a child rights advocate; she's a human rights advocate and an earth-survival advocate. Her book is a welcome respite away from the "parenting manuals" that fill bookstore shelves and the "me-first" industrialized culture. It's an invitation into the discovery of what it means to be human, and what it requires to become humane as a society."

"There's a quiet but bold revolution afoot. You won't see it on the news, or heralded by dramatic marches upon Washington. It's not represented by lobby groups or debated in Senate. But it's gradually weaving its way into the daily lives of families all over the world. In small, ordinary, but heroic ways, mothers and fathers are rejecting the culturally-endorsed style of parenting that denies children their basic need for bonding and non-violence. Instead, they're choosing to be responsive to those needs and by doing so, are forging a new, more peaceful society. Laurie A. Couture gives a clear voice to this new movement and her book gives us straightforward guidance. By questioning the cultural assumptions made around children and their needs--from birth, to discipline, to education--she shed's light on a kind of "insanity" that modern society has taken on. This insanity results in symptoms of collective childhood distress expressed in such phenomena as ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, depression and anxiety. And in response, Laurie very systematically gives us a cure for this insanity: Bonding and attachment. Drawing on the time-tested ancient wisdom of peaceful Indigenous cultures and combining that with respected neurobiological research, Laurie gives us a blueprint for raising children through connection instead of disconnection, through love instead of fear... Laurie A. Couture is not just a child rights advocate; she's a human rights advocate and an earth-survival advocate. Her book is a welcome respite away from the "parenting manuals" that fill bookstore shelves and the "me-first" industrialized culture. It's an invitation into the discovery of what it means to be human, and what it requires to become humane as a society." --Kali Wendorf, Editor, Kindred Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 436 pages
• Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing; 1st edition (October 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932279970
• ISBN-13: 978-1932279979
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #216,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book fills a huge void June 25, 2009

By LS in Maine

Format:Paperback

This book goes far beyond the scope of the typical "how-to" parenting book. It brings to light how many of the choices we make as parents, which are often viewed in this culture as normal and necessary, hinder the development of a healthy relationship between parent and child. The author (who is a therapist) makes a powerful case that "attachment disorders" are endemic in today's society and are the root cause of most emotional/mental health issues children experience. As one example, she describes how sending a child to school all day can disrupt the parent-child bond and harm children's development in other ways. There is a particularly eye-opening section where she prints e-mails she has received from many parents describing how schools denied their children the right to go to the restroom when they needed to, often with traumatic results for the child. "Not only are children away from their most important relationships for most of the day, their basic needs and their higher level learning needs are not being met....Over the years, parents watch their once upbeat children become emotionally sullen, distant, anxious and sarcastic." Yet, Couture writes, too often the response to a child who is "acting out" is punishment and/or medication. Couture, an adoptive parent, also delves into attachment disorders that can stem from adoption and the foster care system. Fortunately, the book contains concrete strategies for parents to help them heal their relationships with their children, no matter how old. As a parent whose son had a difficult time in public school, and who has been working hard to strengthen our relationship, this book struck a strong chord with me. I hope it finds its way to enough parents and educators that more attention will be paid to the real causes of children's distress in this society, rather than looking for easy but ineffective solutions.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For All Parents and Other Child Advocates June 14, 2009

By Lucy

Format:Paperback

This important book will open your eyes to new ways of thinking about parenting and educating our children. It's not just about so-called "difficult" children, but about each and every child and how best to support their development and self-fulfillment from babyhood to adulthood.

In a dozen chapters and four appendices Ms. Couture guides us through such topics as how to change our child-unfriendly culture and ways to overcome the negative aspects of industrialization. She explains how to develop and maintain the "Human Attachment Cycle," and how school and day care can harm children and be destructive to parent-child attachment.

There are chapters on child trauma and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), foster care, institutional care, and adoption, with excellent guidance on how to heal these traumas.

Chapter 12 includes a summary of the book, plus ideas on how to become a child advocate, and an extensive list of resources and books for further reading.

Ultimately, this book is a guide to granting children their basic rights to feel safe, loved, and supported. If all children were treated as Ms. Couture advocates, we would live in a much more peaceful world.

This book has proven very useful in my volunteer work with children.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Raising children is far too important to rely on culture and mass media November 13, 2009

By Julie Cook

Format:Paperback

As an advocate for natural parenting, I loved this book. There is no denying the relationships that Laurie presents between the undesirable ways in which children behave and the lack of parental attachment and bonding. I think most parents know, at some level, that the influence of mass media and culture that shapes the way they parent their children is causing devastating harm. The problem is......they themselves were raised this way and many are hopelessly caught up in living unauthentically.....which perpetuates the cycle. It's too bad that so many "third world" countries are now trying to mimic our western lifestyle, which includes bottle feeding instead of breast feeding, hospital births which deny early bonding along with over medicating, idolizing and believing anyone they see on TV. They don't realize it now, but they are forever changing their societies and their children for the worse. Hopefully, more authors like Laurie, will continue to write about what they know to be the truth, and the movement will gain momentum and cause wonderful changes for future generations.