Customer Reviews

Your Competent Child: Toward New Basic Values for the Family

5 star:		(7)
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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.

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.

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."

This is an amazing book that will surely turn upside down any thoughts you ever had about raising children. Even though you may not agree with all the views in this book, there is so much food for thought and new ideas that you will return to this book again and again for interesting and mind blowing advice.

The book encourages parents to take FULL responsibilty for the family, but in a way that ensures that the child is respected. It offers a new way to raise kids that is not based on power (the oldfashioned way) or democracy (the way of the 70's). I highly recommend it!

This book takes a giant step forward in our knowledge of what children really need. It is based on a wealth of practical experience, but provides a profound theoretical basis for our interactions with children. And is easy to read. It has been available in Scandinavia for some time, and has been used by people I knew while living in Denmark in kindergartens and home environments with great success. (I read the Danish original.)

Fundamentally it declares that all children should be treated as unique human beings of equal value. It does not provide strategies or recipes for success. But encourages us to be ourselves when interacting with children, and to actively support them in developing their own sense of self. It explains that there is always a message in children's actions and reactions. And that it is by carefully listening to these underlying messages that we can support our children and find their true needs, and the reasons for apparent problems. In particular this applies to behaviour patterns that we may label as challenging, inappropriate or dysfunctional. The book is well-written, and reveals Jesper Juuls deep wisdom, love and understanding for both children and parents, as well as a good sense of humour and perspective.

(¤Thank you for reading this review and your votes - either way!¤)
INTRO:
Okay, I am barely a new parent (expecting our first child) and have not read many books in this genre (child development and upbringing). I have seen this book on a local community college bookstore shelves but the subtitle "Toward New Basci Values for the Family" sent the wrong message to a conservative like me. The amount of wisdom, introspective reflection the reader has to do, and examples provided compell me to give this a 5 star and to write the review title given. Here in Denmark, I have even met Danes that read the book no less than five times (due to content being so rich and thought-provoking).

AUTHOR:
"Jesper Juul, born in Denmark in 1948, is a family therapist. He is the director of the Kempler Institute of Scandinavia, a center for family therapy, and Family Counseling International in Croatia." What I liked about Jesper is that he has a lot of experience with families from different continents and cultures, and is also humble enough to recognize that he had also made mistakes while raising his son.

CONTENT:
From the Introduction, Jesper Juul sounds like a good friend with a mild tone that wants to challenge our way of thinking about raising children. The author is proposing that parents and families adopt a Scandinavian system to raising kids, a 3rd way between the old-fashioned authoritarian model and the modern democratic model.

The Chapters are as follows (with specific quotes):
INTRODUCTION (pg.3)

Chapter 1. FAMILY VALUES (pg.11)

Chapter 2. CHILDREN COOPERATE! (pg.36)

Chapter 3. SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-CONFIDENCE (pg.84)
A great chapter on the difference between these 2 concepts and which is healthy and which is not, and how to understand them thru ample examples.

Chapter 4. RESPONSIBILITY, BEING RESPONSIBLE, AND POWER (pg.123)
This 3rd way of raising kids, means "to create relationships within the family that are based on treating one another with equal dignity, relationships that inhance everyone's integrity and self-esteem, and promote reciprocal good feelings" (pg.123).
The most valuable information I took from this book was that "these concepts - integrity, self-esteem, and responsibility - are inseperable"(pg.137) and "respecting children's self-esteem and personal responsibility" (pg. 215). "Children know what they want, but sometimes they do not know what they need"(pg.154).

Chapter 5. CHILDREN'S SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (pg.160)

Chapter 6. LIMITS (pg.200)
"The belief that there is one 'right' way of raising children. There is none. What does exist is a mutual learning process based on who you are as a parent and who your child is. Parents need to learn to be as true to themselves as posible, and as direct and personal in their expression as they can be. By doing so, they will learn about the true nature and personality of each child, and thanks to the child's competent feedback, parents will be able to fine-tune their reactions to the child. ... The real question is 'What is good for my relationship with my child ?' That is, what makes both of us - and the relationship between us - develop in a healthy way ?" (pg.213-214) "To create families in which all members thrive and develop in healthy ways, the focus needs to be on dialogue, not on 'permission'" (pg.221).

Chapter 7. FAMILIES WITH TEENAGERS (pg.222)
"The way in which the family decision-making process unfolds is more important than the actual decisions that are reached. It is better to take plenty of time to reach decisions than to forge hurried compromises in order to establish domestic peace. Also it is better to ensure that both parties are taken seriously than to cut off discussion by proposing a 'fair' solution" (pg.238).

Chapter 8. PARENTS (pg.244)

CONCLUSION:
While the English translation is sometimes forceful (my Danish wife owns the original edition of "Det kompetente barn" but I am not at a level good enough to read and understand Danish yet),
a) the amount of FOOD FOR THOUGHT,
b) excellent relevant life EXAMPLES, and
c) open-minded nonsense no-cookie-cutter approach
makes this book a TOP REFERENCE in our family library, and will be read a couple more times throught the next decade.

(¤Thank you for reading this review and your votes - either way!¤)

Refreshing, honest and practical advise. Jesper Juul really gets
the importance of listening to, seeing and acknowledging your child.