Kids Are Worth It! : Giving Your Child The Gift Of Inner Discipline [Paperback]

Barbara Coloroso (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 20, 2002

The parenting classic, now revised with new chapters, checklists, and information about today's most pressing issues regarding our children

This bestselling guide rejects "quick-fix" solutions and focuses on helping kids develop their own self-discipline by owning up to their mistakes, thinking through solutions, and correcting their misdeeds while leaving their dignity intact. 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Coloroso urges parents to teach children to take responsibility for their actions.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Coloroso says that there are three types of parents--Jellyfish, Brickwall, and Backbone. The first two muck it up royally by being too wishy-washy or too firm. The parent with a backbone, however, can be stern when necessary and provide structure yet have the flexibility that children and families need. Coloroso applies these models to a variety of parenting situations, from toilet training to curfew setting. Like the Cosby show, it looks and sounds so easy when the script is already written, but there are plenty of good ideas here for keeping parents' sanity intact. Portions of the book are taken directly from the author's excellent video Winning at Parenting as well as from her popular lecture series. Denise Perry Donavin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Revised edition (August 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060014318
• ISBN-13: 978-0060014315
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Self-Help > Relationships > Conflict Management

More About the Author

Barbara Coloroso is an international bestselling author and for the past 38 years an internationally recognized speaker and consultant on parenting, teaching, school discipline, positive school climate, bullying, grieving, nonviolent conflict resolution and restorative justice. She has appeared on Oprah, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and NPR and has been featured in the New York Times, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, and other national and international publications. Her uniquely effective parenting and teaching strategies were developed through her years of training in sociology, special education, and philosophy, as well as field-tested through her experiences as a classroom teacher, laboratory school instructor, university instructor, seminar leader, volunteer in Rwanda, and mother of three grown children. She is the author of four international bestsellers: kids are worth it! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline; Parenting Through Crisis--Helping Kids in Times of Loss, Grief and Change; The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander--From Pre-School to High School, How Parents and Teachers Can Help Break the Cycle of Violence; and Just Because It's Not Wrong Doesn't Make It Right--From Toddlers to Teens, Teaching Kids to Think and Act Ethically. Barbara's latest book is Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide...and Why it Matters. She also has two critically acclaimed video programs Winning at Parenting...without beating your kids and Winning at Teaching...without beating your kids.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 103 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is NOT for lazy parents December 8, 2000

By "kangarex"

Format:Paperback

If you don't want to put effort into raising your kids, this is not the book for you. But if you want clear-thinking, responsible kids, and don't mind some effort getting there, you can't have a better reference. Ms Coloroso's advice is clear, and should make you think hard about how you interact with your children. Yes my son is 3 and I'm 30. Yes I'm the parent, but he still has opinions about his life, and some are worth paying attention to. And sometimes I'm wrong. Being the parent doesn't make me God. Also note, I'm usually in the right, listening means that I pay attention to my sons' opinions and wants, not that I cave in to them every time.

Believe me it's much, much harder making a 3 year old take the consequence of a misbehavior, and helping him try to fix his problem himself than it would be to punish him for it and fix things myself, but oh boy does he learn more when I put in the effort.

This is not minimum effort parenting, and it's not about letting your kids always having their own way. It's about teaching them how to think rather than what to think.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Comedy AND Wisdom ! June 20, 2005

By Nicole J. Laws-Carroll

Format:Paperback

As another, more supercilious reviewer notes, the ideas in this book are similar to the work of the developmental psychologist Diane Baumrind. However, this in no way detracts from the value of the book for three reasons: First, it means that the ideas are based on scientifically supported ideas. Second, explaining parenting styles only takes up one chapter at the beginning, then Coloroso builds on the ideas with her own. And third, comparing the presentation of Coloroso's books, tapes, and videos with reading a scientific paper is silly! ...Most people will neither have access to, nor enjoy reading dry academic papers.. And they are not likely to be able to suddenly derive from them, the kind of carefully thought out and articulated system of parenting that Coloroso offers. From concrete examples as well as abstract ideas, this book will help you incorporate commonly held goals of parenting into real-life interactions with your kids. This is not a book on just one concept or how to handle one particular parenting problem, but a way of thinking about parenting that makes each concrete situation so much more clear cut.

You will like her style if you value giving kids BOTH a warm, respectful, open relationship where they can feel safe to be themselves and develop their own unique identity, AND an environment with strong clear boundaries where they can grow to understand how to make healthy compassionate choices for themselves and those they care about... And if you are tired of books by "experts" who have never been parents. This book grew out of Coloroso's lectures, which grew out of her own teaching and parenting experiences, and it is clear that she "has been there" and she practices what she preaches.

Because this book was once lecture material, Coloroso dose sum everything up into, sometimes silly, but catchy little phrases as some have noted. However, I have found them incredibly useful through the years as issues arise.. When my step-daughter and I butt heads, like a mantra I hear in my head "Children need to know how to think not what to think."... or when my two year old "painted" our new linoleum floor, I took deep breaths and chanted "Never treat a child at six a way your don't want to be treated a sixty".. or during the thousand other trials that a blended family endures everyday I try HARD to remember the ultimate goal of parenting which is to raise adults who can say, "I like myself, I can think for myself, and There is no problem so great it can't be solved". In Coloroso's way of thinking these simple phrases translate to: model correct behavior consistantly eveyday, help your children to learn to make better choices in the future through natural consequences and making incorrect behavior an unattractive choice, and teach them to solve problems by progressively allowing them to earn more responsibility for thier choices and the consequenes of those choices... and much, much more.

If you are someone who needs to hear from experts to be convinced: I was first exposed to this book when it was used in my mother's school for children with behavioral problems as a training guide for teachers, then I found it again as a frequent recommendation in my Le Leche League's library, then just today I sat in a crisis counselor's office and listened as she quoted directly from the book to my husband and his ex-wife when they asked about parenting a troubled teen. If you don't like to read, go to her website and get the video "Winning at Parenting Without Beating Your Kids". This is a good stuff!...

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Critics are missing the point -- read the book! February 17, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Having just heard Ms. Coloroso speak, I can say with certainty that her critics here online who claim she teaches kids new-age ideas and is anti-family discipline are wrong. Her emphasis is emphatically on teaching kids to be respectful of themselves, people in authority, and their communities. She says that if you teach kids to do what you say just because you say so, they'll grow up to do what people in their peer groups do because they can't think for themselves. But you're still the parent and the one who draws the line in matters of security, morality, and legality. One of her shorthand references shows the differences between punishment and discipline. Her idea of discipline is to show kids what they've done wrong, and give them ways to solve the problems they've created, but allow them to keep their dignity. If your idea of traditional discipline involves shaming children when they make honest mistakes or "explaining" decisions by saying, "Because I said so, that's why," then she's not your kind of disciplinarian. But if you want to teach your children to think for themselves so that they can grow up to be less influenced by their peer groups and work well with other people at home and in their communities, her theories are worth a look. And as for the London reader who says the book is "Typically American," I suggest that person spend some time familiarizing himself or herself with the styles of parenting that actually prevail in this country. If her attitude were typically American, there'd be no need for this book.