Raising Kids Who Will Make a Difference: Helping Your Family Live With Integrity, Value Simplicity, and Care for Others (Paperback)

by Susan V. Vogt (Author)
Key Phrases: New York, United States, The Vogt Kids Speak (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
There are no guarantees in parenting. As a mother, counselor, and family-life educator, author Susan Vogt intimately knows how parents struggle to help their children develop strong values. In this unique and thoughtful guide to raising socially conscious children, Vogt sets out to inspire, equip, and comfort parents in the awesome task of raising kids who will make positive contributions to the world.

Using a delightful blend of honesty and humor, Vogt offers successful parenting strategies and straightforward discussions on important issues like sexuality, substance abuse, materialism, racism, global awareness, and death. Personal anecdotes, stories from other parents, and perspective from Vogt’s children enhance the practical information. Each chapter concludes with reflection activities to stimulate discussion for the whole family.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Loyola Press (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0829417923
• ISBN-13: 978-0829417920
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #232,753 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raising Kids Who Will Make a Difference, February 6, 2003

By A Customer

This is a surprising book! I usually don't like books that tell you how to raise your kids. I end up feeling guilty about all the things I did wrong that the author did right and I hate books that give a formula for parenting perfectly.

Vogt's book does just the opposite. She acknowledges that her parenting was less than perfect and her suggestions allow for a wide variety of approaches.

Best of all the author has put together a unique book that includes her ideas and principles on twelve different topics, observations from seasoned parents and reactions from their chlidren. She also puts in resources, exercises and great stories that kept my attention throughout.

I received this book as a gift and started reading it with reluctance but it just go better and better with every page. I especially like what Vogt's own kids had to say about the way they were raised and while they resisted some of their parent's idealism they turned out ok. Their daughter who wrote some of the funniest stories in the book is now serving in the Peace Corp.

Raising Kids... would make a great book on parenting and teaching values but it would also be a great read about how generations interact and approach topics from very different perspectives. I kept reading whole sections aloud to my wife while she was trying to read her own book.

This may be the best book I have ever read on parenting and sharing values with children.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gift for grandparents to pass on, November 27, 2002

By A Customer

My own children are grown with children of their own but I'm still a concerned parent and grandparent and Raising Kids who will make a Difference gives me hope. So much of what I read and see on TV disturbs me these days and I tell my adult children that I think it's a lot harder to be a parent today than it was a generation ago. I think Raising Kids Who Will Make a Difference can help. It combines the practicality of Dr. Spock that guided my parenting with the inspiration of spiritual leaders like Jesus and Gandhi and wraps them all up in age old values and wisdom that Vogt somehow manages to convey with a modern and accessible tone. I think ordinary parents will find they can relate to it, It's not just written with "super-parents" in mind. I felt consoled to know I did a lot of things right in my own parenting and that even my regrets are shared by other good parents.

Even though my active parenting days are over, I want to give this book to my children and the other young parents I know to help them get a good start. As Vogt says, "Start young....it's a lot easier to limit TV to an hour a day when the child is a toddler and gradually allow extensions than to announce to a preteen that the family is going to cut back on TV. If the rule has always been that everybody pitches in to clean house on Saturday, it won't meet with the resistance that some parents experience when they try to implement new policies that they picked up from a parenting class or from reading a book such as this one. If you're too late for the start young approach, approach your family gently and include everyone in the decision-making process." It makes a parent want to stretch but without guilt.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A realistic and comforting book, October 1, 2002

By A Customer

I sat down in my favorite chair in the living room intending to spend only about 15 minutes with it because that's all the time I had, and I couldn't put it down. Finished reading it later when I woke up with insomnia. It was a comforting book, one I wish I had had years ago. The realistic tone is a gift. Most intriguing were the end-of-chapter comments from the author's children.