Teaching Children to Love: 80 Games & Fun Activities for Raising Balanced Children in Unbalanced Times [Paperback]

Doc Lew Childre (Author), Sara Hatch Paddison (Author, Editor), Deborah Rozman (Editor), Jeffrey Goelitz (Editor), Wanda Wortman (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Teaching children to love may seem like a contradiction in terms, but Childre, founder of the Institute for Heart Math in Boulder, Colorado, believes that it is not only possible but necessary. A follow-up to his A Parenting Manual: Heart Hope for the Family (Planetary, 1995), this how-to book helps implement his philosophy. The oversized pages are filled with 80 activities to help children from one to 20 years old learn to be loving people. While the intention may be worthy, the carry-through is not. The activities are contrived and gimmicky, using techniques called Freeze Frame, Captain Cut-Thru, and Heart Tools. Dull, cartoonlike black-and-white pictures permeate the book. Not recommended.?Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Now it's easy for even the busiest of parents and childcare providers to bring love and fun to daily living with children. Teaching Children To Love provides 80 games and fun activities, as well as guidelines, for raising balanced, intelligent, happy children. The link between love and intelligence is simply presented showing how to develop both mental and emotional intelligence through love. Teach Children to Love is fun, heartwarming, invaluable, and offers quick, easy ways to bring more harmony and balance to everyone. Teaching Children To Love is ideal for family night activities and is essential reading for any new parent feeling the need for information and ideas in helping their child to grow up happy and loving. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Heartmath Llc (October 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879052261
• ISBN-13: 978-1879052260
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teaching Children to Love, April 4, 2000

By 

Howard Martin (Boulder Creek, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teaching Children to Love: 80 Games & Fun Activities for Raising Balanced Children in Unbalanced Times (Paperback)

I feel I must begin this review by letting readers know that I do have a close association with HeartMath and Doc Childre in that I co-authored another book, The HeartMath Solution with Doc. With that said I still feel compelled, whether somewhat biased or not, to share my perspectives about Teaching Children to Love.

Doc puts great emphasis on the need to better educate children in the area of mental and emotional self managment. The 80 games and activities he developed for this book do excatly that. The games are intelligently organized, easy to teach children and they are effective.For anyone who works with kids, whether it be a parent, grand parent or child care provider, I can safely say that this is as good a resource as I have seen for helping young people develop the skills they need to navigate these challenging times. It was created from care and it shows.

Howard Martin

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The missing link in education, May 1, 2001

By 

George Zee (www.frzee.org, Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teaching Children to Love: 80 Games & Fun Activities for Raising Balanced Children in Unbalanced Times (Paperback)

This book fills a big lacuna in education. It is not enough to talk about love. Lucky are the parents and teachers who now have such lesson plans to teach children and adolescents in an active and fun way to develop their inner resources to become loving and geuninely caring, without overcare. The three basic HeartMath tools of HEART LOCK-IN, FREEZE-FRAME and CUT-THRU and numerous interpersonal skills are taught through the activities. [Please confer my other reviews of Doc Childre's books, starting with Cut-Thru.] I have been recommending this book to hundreds of parents, school-heads and teachers and have heard of very favorable responses. The HeartMath materials will certainly have much to contribute to humankind.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful Activities For Developing Emotional & Social Skills, August 30, 2003

By 

Jed Shlackman (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teaching Children to Love: 80 Games & Fun Activities for Raising Balanced Children in Unbalanced Times (Paperback)

I got this book, being familiar with the HeartMath Institute and their research on mind-body topics and heart-based biofeedback applications. I have used the Freeze-Framer computer program and even developed my own way of building "coherent" pulse patterns, supplementing Childre's music and appreciative heart center emotional focus with "toning" - like what Robert Monroe would refer to as resonant tuning. This book by Childre provides a variety of activities for different youth age ranges, focusing on using emotional skills that enhance coping abilities, empathy, and appreciation. As a counselor, I have used a few similar activities with elementary school-aged children. Unlike most other social/emotional skill activity guides for children, this book focuses on connecting the emotions with the body (heart). Knowing that mind and body are aspects of a holistic whole, this is a superior approach to more limited conventional approaches. Some of the activities in this book I think need some tweaking to be more engaging or inviting for resistant and impatient children, while others are pretty simple and likely to quickly get children engaged and practicing positive emotional skills. I would recommend that readers learn about the HeartMath programs and research, and even try the "Freeze-Framer" pulse monitor on themselves, as most people typically have pretty incoherent pulse patterns, which are typical of our emotionally unhealthy civilization and lifestyles, leading to the massive pandemic of heart diseases in our society. Our civilization presents social patterns that fuel poor coping skills and heart disease - we don't teach kids meditation, breathing, or positive attitudinal skills, instead focusing on punishment and guilt-inducement when children don't please adults. Caretakers put more energy into punitive discipline and verbal chastisement than into modeling appreciation. Then, the model for handling unpleasant emotions in our culture is dominated by drugs - including stimulants and depressants, both illegal/recreational and prescription. By the time most people are middle aged their hearts begin to weaken from this burden of emotional trauma, suppression, and substance abuse, not to mention the junk food diets that are also used to momentarily sooth unpleasant feelings. Doc Childre should be commended for his efforts to help people build positive emotional skills and coping behaviors, starting in childhood.