It’s such a shame they don’t teach us parenting at school. When it comes to raising kids, we have to rely on someone else’s first-hand experience. Each family has to choose its own path and parenting style to grow an independent, healthy, and happy offspring.
When parents faced a new problem, their main advisers are usually grandparents and the Internet. But those sources of information, however valuable, aren’t always adequate. Internet articles provide only fragmentary and hardly verified knowledge. And parenting tips from grandparents may not fit for modern times. After all, they raised us in a different era. In their time, the world wasn’t so “child-centric.”
Where to
find objective answers to parenting questions, then? The most reliable
information about child psychology and upbringing comes from the books of
professional psychologists and teachers. Popular science literature has a few
solid advantages:
– It’s based on research in psychology;
– It provides comprehensive answers to questions: explains the origins of
the problem and ways to solve it;
– It has a calming effect because the reader understands that they’re not
the first and not the last parent who has difficulties in raising a child.
There are dozens of wonderful books about parenting. We’ve pulled together a list of ten modern publications that address today’s problems of parents in simple terms. Our selection focuses more on preschool children and primary school students.
“Kindergarten Is Too Late!” by Masaru Ibuka
It’s perhaps the most important bestseller on early child development at any relationship blog. The book doesn’t make stunning statements – the author simply assumes that young children have the ability to learn anything. They can learn instantly what adults learn at a snail speed. Early development doesn’t imply force-feeding toddlers with facts and figures. The main thing to introduce a new experience on time, and the book will help you with this.
“The Dolphin Way: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Healthy, Happy, and Motivated Kids-Without Turning Into a Tiger” by Shimi Kang
The title very accurately reflects the essence of the book: “tiger” parents see happiness in success, which means only a prestigious position and high status in the future. Can this be achieved without authoritarianism, constant monitoring, and excessive workload? Shimi Kang – a psychiatrist, researcher, and mother of three – believes that it’s possible. For the harmonious development of children, the upbringing of self-motivation and the establishment of warm relationships within the family, she offers “the dolphin path.”
“The Intuitive Parent: Why the Best Thing for Your Child Is You” by Stephen Kamarata
Stephen Kamarata is a professor of psychiatry, the father of seven (!), and a supporter of “the intuitive education,” which is based on attention to the child, the pleasure of communicating with it, and a natural reaction to its actions. The author suggests trusting parental intuition and love. The book brings relief to many parents who don’t take children to extra classes or indulge them with fashionable toys but know how to sincerely speak with their kids and listen to them carefully.
“How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish
“Why don’t you listen to me? Why are you acting like that?” Such reproaches are familiar to every child. And each parent sometimes feels powerless when they can’t reach out to their kid. But maybe the whole point is that adults don’t always know how to convey their thoughts and feelings to a child and how to understand it? This book is a reasonable, understandable, and well-written guide on how to communicate with children.
“French Children Don’t Throw Food” by Pamela Druckerman
This book is an American look at the French education system. French parents somehow manage to raise happy, polite, and obedient children, without sacrificing their adult life. Not everything in this book should be taken as a bit of solid advice, but it will be useful to those parents who are too focused on raising their children.
“How Children Succeed” by Paul Tuff
In pedagogy, it’s generally accepted that motivation is associated with an interest in the subject: if you interest the child, then a desire to learn will appear. Paul Tuff presents a different point of view: for successful learning, it’s important to have purposefulness, perseverance, optimism to force yourself to go towards the goal. Tuff confirms his theory with an abundance of facts and modern research.
“Permission to Parent: How to Raise Your Child with Love and Limits” by Robin Berman
In attempts to satisfy any desire of the child to make it happy, parents achieve the opposite result. Well-meaningly, we leave children vulnerable to stress. How to maintain a balance between excessive rigor and connivance? According to the author, a certified psychotherapist, to be a parent means to educate oneself first, and then start educating a child.
Teaching Kids to Think: Raising Confident, Independent, and Thoughtful Children in an Age of Instant Gratification by Ron Stolberg and Darlene Sweetland
It’s an important book to help you understand why current children and teens have difficulties transitioning to adulthood. Today, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for kids to develop the ability to plan, organize, overcome obstacles, and make decisions. The task of parents is to help children become independent. In each chapter, the authors (doctors of psychological sciences) give advice, following which you can cope with difficulties and avoid typical educational traps.
“Before Your Kids Drive You Crazy” by Nigel Latta
The positive book of Nigel Latta, a practicing psychologist, and dad of two sons, completes our selection. It’s a practical guide for upbringing children with specific examples. Readers will appreciate a sober approach and an objective assessment of problems and ways to solve them, as well as the author’s cheerfulness and humor, which make parenting much easier.