As a pediatrician I am always searching for ways to help parents, parent. I came accross this little book some weeks ago and found it very good. I read it on Kindle, but think it should be read on hard copy. It’s so good you’ll want to make notes in it. Below is a review I wrote on Amazon.
Teaching Kids to Be Good People: Progressive Parenting for the 21st Century, By Annie Fox
All my kids are grown and so are most of my 14 grand kids, but as a pediatrician I found this book to be an excellent source for hands on “how to” advice!
Ann’s underlying premise is: Not all teachers are parents, but all parents are teachers! I couldn’t agree more, and I would add that: All parents are their kids BEST teachers. Unfortunately not all parents believe that, but they will when they finish this little, easy to read, book.
I liked what she had to say about peer pressure by calling it “peer approval”. We all seek approval from our peers, and many times we do “what’s needed” to get that approval. That’s OK, Ann says as long as it is the right thing, the thing we want to do, or is of neutral moral or social value. In my new book, for release this fall, “Tools for Effective Parenting”, I call peer pressure – peer permission, which is in line with her thinking. Effective parenting, (the act, not my book) Ann says is “parenting which helps kids develop a code of ethics.” And that code, must include integrity!
She has a great approach to bullying and “the village” parent concept. Bullying includes hard things like “online” and even “Credit card buying”. Read it you’ll love it, and it will help you as well as your children!
Two other things I really like: If you need something from your kids, or anyone, don’t ask, TELL. I have heard so many parents ask their kids if they “Want to go home, or want to go to bed, or eat their dinner, or want to go to the rest room.” Kids always say “No” and the parents feel frustrated. Her advice and mine: TELL them, “It’s time to go home, to go to bed, or the bathroom.” And “You need to do your home work, now!”
I like her “Butt in Campaign”! If you see a child, even if it’s not yours, doing something good, compliment them! If they are doing something not so good, like hitting another child or taunting someone, tell them that’s not the way to act, we should not hurt other people!
I really loved this book, but I had to give it less than 5 stars for a technical reason. She told a story at the end of each topic and asked the reader what s/he would say or do in this situation. Then she would say, read my response at some number, I did not know what that number meant until I got to the end of the book and found all her responses. In a hard copy this would not have been a problem, but I am not experienced enough with e-reading to make it work, even if I had known the numbers referred to pages.
But this is a great book, I would recommend reading it in hard paper version and having a pen and note book in hand. It’s a book worth keeping and referring to often as your child grows. In short, ITS A REAL GEM!
Please let me know how you like it!