Customer Reviews

The Power of Positive Parenting : A Wonderful Way to Raise Children

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have six kids of my own. I found myself looking to other parents for practical evidence of how to be a better dad. There is one man in particular who had perfect kids, and perfect house and, well you know the rest. I got a lot of good ideas from watching him with his children.
Later I ran across this book, and it put into words the very same things that I saw him DO.
It wasn't until about 2/3 of the way through the book, as I was incidentally recommending to a friend, that I noticed that my "good example friend" appeared on this cover. Turns out his dad wrote the book.
I can tell you with certainty that a parent with the willingness to change (not just a desire) can turn their family around with a little guidance.
There is no other book you NEED. Just add work.

I can't recommend this book highly enough! I came from a home where the parents were no doubt trying, but had very few parenting skills. We were basically hit and told how awful we were. I came away from my home only knowing what I DIDN'T want to do as a parent, but having no idea what TO do.

I love children and always wanted a big family. And I feel like I've read just about every parenting book out there, in my search to learn how to be a kind, loving, yet in control parent. This book showed me HOW to be the kind of parent that I have always yearned in my heart to be. It not only tells you what you should be doing (along with the research that proves that THIS is the most effective way to raise children!), but shows you step-by-step EXACTLY how to do it.

I give this the highest recommendation that a book could ever receive. Five stars aren't enough! Your children will love you for following the guidelines in this book, and you'll love Glenn Latham for how happy your family will become.

Perhaps the most important job we have as human beings is to be effective parents. Given the millions of variables that can affect the development of our children, however, there is no doubt that being a parent is also one of the most challenging jobs. Fortunately, Latham has written a wonderful book that details the successful application of principles of behavior analysis to the development of our children.

In the last few years, I have had over a dozen college students who were parents themselves use this book with their own families as class projects for a developmental psychology course I teach. All students reported substantial improvements in their home lives and in the interactions with their children. These anecdotal outcomes support the empirical evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of behavioral principles in real world situations.

We owe it to our children to be the best parents we can be!

My husband and I had the good fortune to be able to attend a meeting where Dr. Latham was speaking a couple of years ago. At the time our three sons were all under the age of 8, two of which were twins. Our house had become very loud and unpleasant, even though we were really trying hard to be great parents. After the meeting we bought the book and we have become passionate supporters of it. We are living in heaven on earth where our sons are responsible for their own behavior and we have learned to praise the positive and ignore the inconsequential. In fact, this book even inspired us to enlarge our family, we are now the proud parents of another set of 4 month old twin boys! Thanks alot Dr. Latham! :)

I first bought this book 2 years ago. At the time I was at my wits end struggling with behavioral issues with one of my children and feeling like parenting was the worst job in the world and that I was the worst parent ever. It took a while for the ideas from this book to sink in, but little by little I began to see that my little one was craving attention, ANY attention positive or negative, whatever she could get. Unfortunatly all she was getting was negative attention!
This book gave me the tools (recommended words and actions) to use to turn the negative attention to positive attention. It taught me to seek out and reward positive behavior and calmly handle the unwanted behavior. Two years later we have a warm, open, fun, mutually respectful relationship, a complete turn around. I feel like I am a great parent and my kids are respectful (most of the time!), not by force but out of respect. I have since bought 3 copies to give to parents that are frustrated and in the same negative attention abyss.
Parts of the book are redundant and albeit a bit corny but I love it just the same... IT WORKED FOR MY FAMILY.

I can't stress enough how good this book is.

With the experience of decades of research at Utah State University, Dr. Latham (who I had the pleasure to meet last year) distills loving, scientifically-proven guidelines and advice for parents.

This is _not_ a book trying to capitalize on parenting. It is a result of decades of research and experience, explained in the loving voice of Dr. Latham.

It explains why parenting is something we must learn how to do, not something we can (very successfully) do based solely on "popular knowledge" or on how your parents raised us (because neither of these may be correct; most of 'popular knowledge' is incorrect and the world has simply changed -- a lot -- since our parents raised us, hence the importance of learning scientifically-proven guidelines).

The principles explained in great details (and with lots of real cases) in this book are applicable to children of _every_ age, from new-born, to adults.

This is a book I wish had been around when my kids were young. Thank heavens I found it while they were teenagers. I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend, when my kids were heading for social, educational and emotional disaster. When I hit the page where the author says that insanity is doing the same things you have always done and expecting different results, I decided his concepts were worth a try. My kids responded immediately, just as Dr. Latham predicted, and so positively that I was astounded.

Don't expect to be too entertained by this book. It's repetitive and many of the things the author tells you to do are so counterintuitive you may be tempted (as I was) to think they'll never work. However, don't let the repetitive nature of his instructions put you off. There's a good reason for all the repetition--we don't get it the first time, or the second, or the third, or... Give his principles a try and watch the absolute miracles start to happen.

I regularly assign this book as reading material for my clients, especially parents, as part of my clinical practice. I was amazed to find that many of the principles that I had stumbled onto in my clinical career as a Behavior Analyst were formally documented in this book all of those years ago. This is probably as close to a manual on "How to Parent" as there is out there.

When we had questions about sleep and tantruming of our 15 month old son, this book came highly recommended, and it has been a life saver! Very practical, loving advice that is easy to read and implement. It covers topics from infancy through the teenage years. Fantastic!

I found this book several years ago, and it changed my life. I am the mother of five kids and was so frustrated - knowing how I wanted them to act and not having the ability to get them to do act that way. This book is full of great examples and methods to become a truly great parent. It teaches THE way to parent in an easy-to-read and easy-to-put into action method. It sits by my bed and I refer to it often. You can make significant changes in your parenting after reading a few pages. I have had many people ask me how I get my kids to behave so well, and I turn them onto this book. It is fantastic!!!