Your Competent Child: Toward New Basic Values for the Family [Paperback]

Jesper Juul (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0374527903 | ISBN-13: 978-0374527907 | Edition: First Edition

A compelling and revolutionary approach to parenting and family dynamics.

In this important book, Jesper Juul argues that today's families are at an exciting crossroads. The destructive values that governed traditional hierarchical, authoritarian families are being transformed. Instead we can choose to embrace a new set of values based on the assumption that families must be built not on authoritarian force or democratic tyranny but on dignity and reciprocity between parent and child. Children are emotionally competent -- that is, they always tell the truth about how they are feeling. Parents must begin to listen to and learn from the honest feedback they receive from their children. When we feel unhappy or dissatisfied with a situation in the family, it is almost always because we were unable to convert our loving feelings into loving behavior. To do so, we need to become fluent in what Juul calls "personal language" -- a language less concerned with "shoulds" than with our own emotional honesty.

Using examples from families in many different countries, Juul has written a book that challenges parents to see the years with their children as an exciting time of growth and development for the whole family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"We often think and act as if our relationship with children is a one-way street on which the traffic flows from us to them," notes Danish family therapist Juul, who champions a brave new family dynamic in this thoughtful multicultural and multinational analysis. From birth, he contends, children are "fully humanDthat is, they are social, responsive, and empathic," and over the past 30 years, in particular, they have become "less fearful and respectful of authority." Far from interpreting this trend as a breakdown in traditional values, however, Juul sees it as a healthy progression. Tracing the evolution of the family from the totalitarian power structure that has been in place for centuries toward what he calls the "post-democratic family," in which each individual is taken seriously and "the quality of decision making is accorded more importance than the decision itself," Juul sees humanity at a crossroads. He describes a new structure that is less about power struggles and violence ("an insult to any person's integrityDincluding children's") and more about dialogue and the responsible use of power, as well as about a core concept of "equal dignity." Although the book is more of a social analysis, Juul's helpful ideas and guidelines for parents make for an inspiring how-to manual for anyone interested in creating families "in which every individual can grow and prosper." Placed along with other parenting titles, this book will find an empathetic readership. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

". . . highly recommend Your Competent Child to all parents as a challenging, rewarding, and very helpful book." -- Anthony E. Wolf, Ph.D., author of Get Out of My Life

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (April 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374527903
• ISBN-13: 978-0374527907
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #886,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fabulous, Important Book June 30, 2001

By Kyla Hanington

Format:Paperback

Jesper Juul provides parents with such an amazing, simple, and absolutely vital approach to raising children that it rings true on every page. Some of what he suggests we as parents do is difficult - as it is against our "knee-jerk" reactions we may have learned from our parents, but all of it is right on about how we can raise confident, healthy, whole humans, right from the start. Juul suggests that we listen to our children, we trust them, respect them, and approach family as a unit all together, rather than view it as a political structure. As I read the book I was constantly saying to myself "but of course, this makes so much sense", and I was thrilled to have discovered a book that allowed me to see different possibilities with child raising. Anyone with a child will gain immensely from reading this book, seeing themselves (as I did, over and over again) in his numerous examples, and learning how to move on from there. Without reservation, I am grateful for this book and highly recommend it.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every new parent should get this book August 25, 2004

By C. Melcher

Format:Paperback

This book offers a very intuitive approach to child rearing. Your strongest tool as a parent is the model your own behavior provides. None of us hesitates to take credit when we can see ourselves in our children's good behavior. This book gently shows how their bad behavior is probably also a reflection of something they're seeing us do and shows ways to correct that.

One of the few liberal parenting books that offers concrete help with older kids rather than saying simply "If you raised them differently, they wouldn't be acting like this now."

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No Parent Should Be Without It September 30, 2001

By RJ Krakower

Format:Hardcover

There are not enough superlatives to describe how helpful this book has been to our family. With tremendous wisdom and a warm, pragmatic eye, Mr. Juul helps us redefine the ways we look at a child's behavior and our relationship to our children and ultimately, each other. This is a book that doesn't offer easy answers or 'tricks' to help in the raising of your child. This is a book that helps you see with a child's eye, hear with a child's ear, and feel with a child's heart in ways that feel so natural and obvious, you will wonder why you haven't thought of them before. But trust me, you haven't. It is a book that offers day-to-day skills along with the thinking that helps generate them, leaving the reader feeling smart and well-satisfied. This groundbreaking book should be on the shelf of all parents everywhere. If you read only one book on raising your child, this is the one.
I cannot recommend it highly enough.