Customer Reviews

Raising Happy Kids: Over 100 Tips For Parents And Teachers

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My wife, an elementary school teacher heard about this book and bought it. We're not big advocates of the "child rearing instruction manuals" to begin with but this doesn't have a shred of useable advice. The author takes a management consultant approach and cops out of offering any specific, actionable advice in her introduction. She doesn't draw on any research and illustrations of her own experience are rather vague. Then there's the writing style. Prosaic and circular meanderings like this one, "Trust is a key element of self confidence. The Oxford English Dictionary defines confidence as: . . . " then goes on with the revelation that "People cannot develop self-confidence if they neither trust themselves . . . . " Yikes! That goes on for three paragraphs. I guess because her editor told her there was no way they were going to be able to market a 14 page pamphlet of trite bullet points for $13.95 US. It did help me fall asleep while I was traveling. But so will Ambien.

Things you already know.
it is just a review.
Good book short review... to remind of how short and important these little minds are.
It starts from the day 1.

Raising Happy Kids is a book that espouses conventional wisdom about democratic parenting. It measures whether or not something is effective with kids by whether it will increase self-esteem, self-confidence and self-reliance. It speaks in favor of parents retaining their parental role and providing boundaries for their children. It also is in favor of helping kids get their needs met.

Where this book departs from Empowerment Parenting is that it basically says that parents' needs are more important than the child's and that parents sometimes must exert their will over their child's simply because they are in charge and they are the parents. Many parents operate under this assumption.

What Empowerment Parenting says is that every person, parents and children alike, must get their needs met in some way. If parents decide that their needs are more important than their child's in a certain situation and impose their will, then that child's need goes unmet. This sets up opportunity for all kinds of problematic behavior to occur simply because the child is attempting to get their needs met in that situation.

Occasionally, parents will need to impose their will particularly when a child's safety is at risk. Sometimes parents will choose to make their needs more important when they are pressed for time. This will most likely be all right as long as it doesn't become a regular routine. However, parents must be prepared to manage the fall out.

Raising children is one of the hardest jobs you will ever undertake and there is no instruction manual. We just do the best we can. Working together with your children so you can both get what you need in a responsible way is the primary message of Empowerment Parenting. It will take more time and require more patience, but the reward of cooperative children far outweighs the effort.