New parenting books

Like most parents, I spend a lot of time worrying.  Sometimes it helps to gain a bit of perspective from the experts, be they doctors, psychologists, or simply other parents who have learned a few things along the way. 

Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership with Your Child by Ross W. Greene

Greene, known to many for his book The Explosive Child, offers a detailed and practical guide for raising kids in a way that enhances relationships, improves communication, and helps kids learn how to resolve disagreements without conflict. Through his well-known model of solving problems collaboratively, parents can forgo time-out and sticker charts, stop badgering, berating, threatening, and punishing, and allow their kids to feel heard and validated, and have influence. From homework to hygiene, curfews, to screen time, Raising Human Beings arms parents with the tools they need to raise kids in ways that are non-punitive and non-adversarial and that bring out the best in both parent and child.

The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children by Alison Gopnik

Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world. "Parenting" won't make children learn--but caring parents let children learn by creating a secure, loving environment.

Love That Boy by Ron Fournier

Love that Boy is a uniquely personal story about the causes and costs of outsized parental expectations. What we want for our children—popularity, normalcy, achievement, genius—and what they truly need—grit, empathy, character—are explored by National Journal’s Ron Fournier, who weaves his extraordinary journey to acceptance around the latest research on childhood development and stories of other loving-but-struggling parents.

The Awakened Family by Shefali Tsabary   

Tsabary believes we all have the capacity to raise children who are highly resilient and emotionally connected. However, modern misconceptions of parenting and our own self-doubt can limit our effectiveness. In The Awakened Family, Tsabary shows how to cultivate a relationship with your children so they can thrive, and you can reach a state of greater calm, compassion and wisdom.  The goal of this book is to help you transcend your fears and illusions around parenting and help you become the parent you always wanted to be: fully present and conscious.

Ebb and Flow: Celebrating Mom and Life at the Cove by Helen Haskell Remien

In this beautiful book full of family photographs, poetry, prose, recipes, and her mother’s artwork, local author and Joy Center founder Helen Haskell shares her experiences of being raised by a free spirit.  Written after her own children left the nest, her work offers readers a glimpse of the parent/child circle wholly rendered.

--Ellen Moore, Website Developer