Customer Reviews

Playground Politics: Understanding the Emotional Life of Your School-Age Child

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This book is one of the most straight-forward books I have read about the emotional stages of children from the time they enter kindergarten through their teen years. In easy to understand language, this book allows parents to enter into the minds and hearts of children and view the world from their perspective. I found it extremely useful for the insight it provides about the role that friends play in children's lives and how we, as parents, can provide support as they face the emotional challanges of human interaction.

The title of this book is entirely misleading. There is nothing whatsoever in the book pertaining to the politics of the playground, but a great deal of very good sense pertaining to how parents can assist their children to surmount developmental challenges. Apart from the usual North American neurotic attitude towards sexuality (that surfaces in Chapter Seven) this book is sensible and instructive. It avoids useless platitudes and instead provides parents with hands-on guidance that is neither foolish nor redundant. Even those parents whose children are progressing satisfactorily will find much here to prompt their thinking in ways that will lead to even greater richness of parent-child interaction. Along with "Siblings Without Rivalry" this is one of the must-have books for a parent's library.

As children grow and mature, they go through many different stages in their lives, each requiring support and understanding. The book, "Playground Politics", by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, offers us a look into the behaviors of children ages 5-12, and the emotional and developmental phases that they experience.

There are no concrete answers to help children cross over successfully from one stage to the next. What we can do, is try to understand the reasoning behind their behavior and feelings, and learn how to be a more supportive caregiver.

My ParenTime highly recommends "Playground Politics" - it gives us that special insight to explore, understand, and nurture our children's stages for growth, development, and emotional well-being.

I highly recommend this book. In addition to providing information on normal school aged childhood development, it provides stories of children who are struggling in various areas of development and how families/parents are impacting their child's development and what they can do to help them achieve the various emotional and social milestones. If you don't want to go for counseling, read this book, get expert advice and implement the strategies.

Very illuminating! I first read this book when my son was in elementary school. He is now 28. I have quoted it to many people many times, and this purchase was for a young woman I met only briefly while visiting at my father's Sunday congregation (she is working on her Paper). My first gift of this book was made years ago to the parent's section of my son's elementary school's library (oh, excuse me- media center).

What has stayed with me all these years is how children may appear to be "blessed" in their abilities to read because of their good memorization skills, so they may be mistakenly left to "read" above level on their own. But what about their comprehension (where are the italics when you need them)? The other thing, which certainly applied to my own son's early struggles, are some children's synapses in the brain may not mature until later in the youngster's life. My son who had additional help though childhood was a state Sterling Scholar nominee and member of the Nat'l Merit Honor Society.

Socialization, dynamics, politics, education, miscues, encouragement, support, identification- this is an EXCELLENT book.