Customer Reviews

How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting The Five Critical Needs of Children...And Parents Too! Updated Edition

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I don't have any children yet, but I read HOW TO RAISE EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY CHILDREN by Gerald Newmark because my cousin, a pre-school teacher, suggested it as interesting reading. It focuses on five critical needs that children have (that is, the need to feel respected, important, accepted, included, and secure) and discusses how to go about fulfilling those needs as a parent. It was a short, informative read, and some of the chapters included examples of how to deal with "real-life" situations at home. One of the things I got out of the book is the realization that you don't have to apply fulfilling the five needs only towards children - you can use them to also improve your relationship with your significant other, parents, siblings, friends, or whatever.

The book is a self-help guide, and it does offer a lot of good, sound advice. Unfortunately, not all of the chapters are as engaging as others, and some can come across as dry reading. Anyway, here's a list of the chapters in the book:

1. The Five Critical Needs of Children (Parenting as Though Children Really Matter)
2. Family Situations (A Closer Look at Behavior that Helps and Behavior that Hurts)
3. Recollections from Childhood (Memories Have Impact)
4. Becoming a Professional at Parenting (Childrearing Is Too Important to Leave to Chance)
5. Overcoming Obstacles and Taking Control (Maintaining Focus and a Balanced Lifestyle)
6. Implications for Families and Schools (Creating and Extending a Sense of Community)
7. Guide to Parent Resources (Tools for Life-Long Learning)

Again, it is a short book, but some the lessons you learn about improving relationships may stick with you for the rest of your life.

How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting The Five Critical Needs of Children...And Parents Too! Updated Edition
Parenting is the toughest job we can ever love. Yet in these challenging times many parents find they need help to cope. This book offers practical ideas to create the families we want - families that respect one another, where all feel secure, accepted, important and included. This is the framework that helps parents examine how they treat family members and themselves. Filled with examples from toddlers to teens, parents will find this book easy and enjoyable to read.
As a parent and a parent educator, my favorite chapter is chapter 4: "Becoming a Professional Parent: Child rearing is too important to leave to chance." In this chapter, Dr. Newmark discusses practical ideas to apply strategies used by professionals to the art of parenting. For example, parents need to develop a game plan and make conscious choices of how they use their time. This means having priorities straight and developing a plan to create the home and family life that is important to them. And professionals monitor their own progress and are willing to adjust plans and to get creative to meet goals. Parents are encouraged to keep a journal to note progress and challenges.
We have used the book as the basis of reading groups and parents report how helpful it is because it gives parents a way to make decisions about which strategy is best for their children and the emotional health of each family member.

My husband and I were very young parents with not a clue as how to raise our children. Our lives and our
children's lives would have been so much easier if this book had only been written then. We go to school to
learn the 3 R's, but there is no school for parenting. This book is so insightful, and makes so much sense, it
should be read by every person who has or expects to have children.
Thank you Dr. Newmark. Your book will have a positive effect on all the children and parents who read and use
it.

"How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children" is a simple, easy-to-follow guide that teaches parents how to communicate respectfully with their children. The book is based on their 5 critical needs: feeling respected, important, accepted, included and secure (don't we all want this?) and how to meet these needs. All I had to do was just shift my thinking a bit to implement the strategies. The strategies make sense and they work - not only communicating with my teenagers (yes, with teenagers) but with my husband and my co-workers, too. The bottom-line: Why didn't I think of this?

It has been over 50 years since I was raising my children but reading this book has helped me become more aware of my responses to all that I encounter. I see it as the ABC's for parenting and am very excited that it is available and so reasonably priced considering the wealth of practical information. The easy to follow exercises in the book will improve awareness in every day situations that arise with ones children.
It is about time that this basic information has been made so accessible and is available in several languages. I recommend this reading for everyone.

This book has been a tremendous help not only with my children but in my workplace as well. In the past I have always felt as though I was a reactive parent. I have a son with special needs and this book has helped open my eyes to a productive way of parenting. It is straight to the point and easy to put in practice. You will find yourself carrying the five needs into every aspect of your life.

How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting The Five Critical Needs of Children...And Parents Too! Updated Edition

Dr. Newmark addresses the emotional needs of children and parents with a clear explanation of those needs, a practical plan for recognizing and fulfilling them and suggestions for collaboration at home, at school, and in the community. In my position as a school administrator I have seen firsthand the need for such a book as well as the enthusiastic response from parents and teachers when they read and discuss it. The book is organized in such a manner that it is easily read and understood. This book should be on everyone's bedside table or library shelf with frayed covers and earmarked pages.

How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting The Five Critical Needs of Children...And Parents Too! Updated Edition


This book is fabulous! It tells you things you would probably never know.

My Husband and I (both attorneys) just finished reading How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children -three months before our first child is scheduled to be born so we feel like we got a little head-start on this "parenting thing." We found this book to be both enlightening and empowering. Often times in the legal profession, lawyers are encouraged (if not literally trained) to be adversarial, confrontational and defensive (at least in the courtroom) but clearly that is not the approach we want to use in our home on our newborn child or anyone else for that matter (although a few exceptions come to mind). In any event, this book helped put our new role as parents into perspective and gave us concrete examples on how to speak and interact with our child in a way that will ensure that our child's 5 critical needs (Respect, Importance, Acceptance, Inclusion, and Security) are met . Thank you Dr. Newmark.

This is definitely a must read for any parent or prospective parent. This book has helped transform my wife and I from the traditional way of parenting to actually taking me back to my childhood when parents really didn't allow children to have a voice. These 5 critical needs are essential to the building of a child's self esteem while allowing the parents to see themselves and some of the mistakes that we don't realize we're making. Thank you Dr. Newmark for opening the eyes of millions of parents around the world!!!