Magical Parent Magical Child: The Art of Joyful Parenting [Paperback]

Michael Mendizza (Author), Joseph Chilton Pearce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2004

This parenting guide presents seven principles for guiding and teaching children in today's turbulent learning environment. It replaces traditional adult-child formulas, rewards, and punishments with playful interaction, creative intelligence, and insight. With the goal of raising happy, healthy, intelligent young people, the book adopts proven strategies that allow top athletes and others to perform at high levels, called variously "zone," "flow," and "play." Using these concepts, parents and other caregivers will learn how to create and maintain "Optimum Learning Relationships" with children of any age.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An extraordinary blueprint...A must for all those seeking a more evolved way to parent or coach."
—Michael Murphy, author of In the Zone, Golf in the Kingdom, and Future of the Body

"This remarkable book invites us to reconsider basic assumptions about learning, teaching, and being with children. It is a rare synthesis of visionary thinking and practicality that will immediately benefit parents, teachers, and children."
—Rahima Baldwin Dancy, author of You Are Your Child's First Teacher

"Every parent and grandparent should read this book, study it, demand that it reveal its secrets, and watch the whole world transform itself as a result."
—Peter Kline, author of Why American Children Can't Think

About the Author

A documentary filmmaker for two decades and founder of Touch The Future, a nonprofit learning design center, Michael Mendizza builds bridges of understanding between the visionary educational and research community and adults who are mentoring the future of humanity. Michael has been inspired by and has worked closely with David Bohrm, J. Krishnamurti, Ashley Montagu, and his close friend Joseph Chilton Peace.

Respected internationally for his visionary understanding of child and human development, Joseph Chilton Pearce is the author of Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Magical Child, Magical Child Matures, Bond of Power, Evolution's End, and most recently The Biology of Transcendence. His lifelong passion has been understanding and describing our "amazing capacities and self inflicted limitations." Joe's vision of the Magical Child and our transcendent nature continues to inspire audiences around the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books (May 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556434979
• ISBN-13: 978-1556434976
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 0.6 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant writer, unorthodox and insightful., January 3, 2007

By 

Patrick Walker "[e-mail]" (Cleveland Hts, OH, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Magical Parent Magical Child: The Art of Joyful Parenting (Paperback)

I'm a big fan of Joseph Chilton Pearce. I've given this book as a gift to new parents, most of whom were inspired and blown away by his ideas. Even embracing just a few of his recommendations helped me IMMENSELY with parenting my daughter, now almost 18.

He's definitely a scientist of the mystical variety, and his insights require a "leap of faith" that there is much more to reality - and child-rearing - that what our often toxic culture usually suggests.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, April 11, 2008

By 

Tara Nicholson (TN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Magical Parent Magical Child: The Art of Joyful Parenting (Paperback)

This was chosen for a parenting book club read. I'm only 30 pages into it, but it's 30 are like another book's 100. Every paragraph has something insightful worth stopping to reflect on. Within the first 30 pages it's not at all a How-To guide to parenting but rather discussion on psychological topics that effect who we as adults are, and how our personality connects with the child (or can disconnect). Wonderful wonderful!

25 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too much long winded idealism; not enough practical insights, October 9, 2006

By 

M. Gray (Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Magical Parent Magical Child: The Art of Joyful Parenting (Paperback)

If one wants to parent with lofty idealism that has limited practical applications then this is the book for you. The authors have presented a philosophy of "joyful" parenting with an effort for parents and children to find "flow" and make play and "optimal learning" experience. In doing so, the "real" world is seen as so out of reach of any nurturing loving parent, that is has to be denounced so that you can create the dream world of your own. As I agree that "culture" has to be looked upon with a critical eye, not every negative aspect of it should be shielded from children nor dismissed is such sweeping general terms. Not every competitive children's sport out there is run by a despotic coachs with overly demanding parents. The way the authors present their theory makes it seem that this is so. Obviously this does exist, but to categorize every one in that group is not only bad editorship, but a highly susceptible argument;without specifics what are we going to discuss: subject or principle?

And random quotes from Pearce's previous books, highlighting every page so that it is jam packed with excessive verbage is not only disconcerting but an equally distressing part to their presentation of ideas. It would have been better to have shorter versions of Pearce's quotes, not the chronically long passages that sometimes do not even go with the main text of the page. And statements from Pearce, such as "... Up to the post World War II period, no suicide has ever been recorded under age fourteen.." leaves one wondering. Now where is Pearce talking about, The United States? Europe? No child during the Depression in our country and those under the rise of Nazism every committed suicide? This hits to the problem with the book: blanket statements that may be true, but may not. As long as it feeds to their argument and is wrapped with flowering prose, then it is acceptible. But what is left out is content.

What would have been better if they utilized this theory into practical results; following families who have to live in the "real" world because mortages and taxes have to be paid, and record the results. How "play" can be implemented in your child's world with "real" examples. Then showcase how a family is succeeding or failing in their endeavors.

There are better books out there that showcase learning, children and the role of parents. Maria Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Erik Erikson, Howard Gardner, David Elkind, John Taylor Gatto, seem better suited to discuss the practical realm of children's learning then the pedantical philosophizing that I found here.