Title: Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why
Author: Paul Tough
Publication Year: 2016
Website: https://paultough.com/helping/
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review

I read Paul Tough’s original book, How Children Succeed, many years ago. I couldn’t remember exactly what it was about, but I knew I liked it. I decided to check out his followup. Much shorter than his original book, I read this book cover to cover in a couple of hours.

As someone who cares a lot about the welfare of children in society and not just my own kids, I found the first sections on brain development fascinating. Tough very clearly and convincingly describes how disadvantaged kids who lived in poverty and other difficult situations are when it comes to academic settings. He discusses issues such as trauma, neglect, attachment issues, and constant stress. If I were an educator in a classroom setting, I would find this information highly relevant to how I thought about the kids in my class.

By studying what measures are effective at improving the outcomes for these kids facing adversity, there is useful information to be gleaned by anyone interested in the education of any child. For example, several studies show that incentivizing learning is unhelpful and maybe even counter-productive. In another study, students performance improved significantly when teachers put a post-it note on their paper saying, “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them,” instead of, “I’m giving you these comments so that you’ll have feedback.”

There are other chapters that promote self-directed, project-based learning, open-ended discussions, and child autonomy. These are all key parts of the homeschooling philosophy I use with my own children, so it was nice to learn about supporting evidence.

I’m not sure how relevant this book would be to the average parent. However, if you care a lot about the welfare of children as a whole or are a homeschooling parent looking for strategies, I highly recommend this book.

Related Links

Homeschooling Books
Educational Books
Learning Activities for Kids

The post Helping Children Succeed appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: A Gracious Space: Fall Edition
Author: Julie Bogart
Publication Year: 2015
Website: bravewriter.com
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review

We all want to enjoy our children and our homeschool. Julie Bogart gives us permission to do that. She takes the pressure off when we feel like we are not doing enough. She reminds us to slow down and appreciate our children as they are, not as we want them to be. Most of all, she let’s us know that everything is going to be okay.

I seriously need to read these books on a loop schedule just to keep my sanity sometimes. Time slips by and our kids grow, but above all, the relationship between parent and child is what is most important. This book provides ideas for fostering that connection while reassuring us that time is not being wasted.

The daily readings are short. They never take more than 10 minutes to read, frequently much less. This book is not a time commitment. It is not another checklist of things to do to provide your kids with the ultimate homeschool experience. It is the sort of book that you read in your pajamas with a cup of tea before your kids wake up. Then afterwards, you hang on to that unhurried, present, calm state of mind for as long as possible.

I highly recommend these books to any homeschool mom, regardless of the state of homeschooling she is in.

Related Links

Homeschooling Books
Educational Books
Learning Activities for Kids

The post A Gracious Space appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: The 5 Love Languages of Children: The Secret to Loving Children Effectively
Author: Gary Chapman
Publication Year: 2016
Website: http://danielcoyle.com/
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review: We all love our children. That goes without saying. I think for most of us…myself included…we assume that our kids know that. I, for one, tell my kids all the time. Before they go to bed. “I love you infinity.” When they wake up in the morning. “I missed you while you were sleeping!” And just randomly throughout the day. “I’m so lucky to have you.” However, as it turns out, my kids haven’t really been hearing me. Words are my love language, not theirs. In fact, of the 6 people in my family, words of affirmation are practically meaningless to everyone but me. The same goes for my other love language: acts of service. These things mean almost nothing to my husband and kids.

Conversely, the love languages that are least important to me personally, gifts and quality time, it turns out are VERY important to various people in my family. Touch, which is somewhere in the middle for me, is extremely important to a couple of my kids. With one of them I could easily tell touch was his primary love language, but with my other child I had no idea.

So what does this all mean? It means that sometimes, we have to do things that don’t come naturally for us in order for our kids to really FEEL our love. It’s important that our kids know we love them. They use that love as strength, as a shield to protect them from the bumps and bruises of life. Uncertainty weakens that shield and leads to a lot of negative consequences. Insecurity can cause our kids to be mean to each other. Conversely, when they are feeling well-loved (when their backpacks or cups are full as other books would say), they are happier and as a result, more cooperative and generous.

If I take the time to connect with my children by speaking to them in their primary love languages, our day goes much easier. Instead of nearly killing each other over who gets to sit where at the breakfast table, they are able to empathize better with each other and be more kind and loving people themselves. If you are at all unsure of your child’s love language, The 5 Love Languages of Children is definitely worth a read in my opinion. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Click here for more Parenting Book reviews.

Related Links:

Parenting Books on Education
Learning Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post The 5 Love Languages of Children appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.
Author: Daniel Coyle
Publication Year: 2009
Website: http://danielcoyle.com/
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review: A lot of what is in this book reinforces what I have already learned from other books, such as Grit and Mindset. Basically, these books all assert that our abilities can be grown and that our potential is unlimited. Rather than believing that our intelligence and talents are fixed, we should understand that these areas can be developed through effort. We see other people as “talented,” but really what we are not acknowledging is the vast amount of hard work and practice that went into developing that skill.

None of these books claim that everyone is equal. Some people do seem to naturally pick up certain skills quicker than other people. However, it is a disservice to ourselves and to our children to act like talent should be effortless. Skill requires lots and lots of practice. This book also does not discount the existence of people on either end of the spectrum (i.e. people with significant mental disabilities and prodigies). However, it does assert that these cases are probably far fewer than most people imagine.

While I’ve already learned of the growth mindset in other books, there are other aspects of this book that I found completely novel. For example, the introduction is called, “The Girl Who Did a Month’s Worth of Practice in Six Minutes.” To give away the punchline, basically what that girl did was struggle for six minutes. She focused all her effort on fixing what was wrong in her piece. According to the researchers, that girl accomplished as much in 6 minutes as she would in a month’s time by just mindlessly playing the pieces she’s already pretty good at.

Another interesting subject in this book that was new to me is the importance of myelin or white matter in our brains. Basically, myelin is the insulation surrounding nerve cells. The more we struggle and work through difficult tasks, the more insulation grows around our nerves and the better those nerves are at transmitting impulses quickly. As asserted by advocates of the growth mindset, making mistakes literally grows your brain.

The author uses this discussion of myelin to illustrate the best way to practice (what he calls “deep practice”). In this type of practice, the person acquiring a skill focuses on attending to and correcting their mistakes. He discusses applications such as how the development of flight simulators helped train pilots and prevent deaths. There is also an indoor version of soccer in Brazil called futsal which allows players to develop skills which translate to soccer quickly and efficiently. With the help of these training situations, people get to focus on the areas that are difficult, which helps them improve at a much faster rate than they otherwise would.

This book also contains sections on how talent hot beds seem to both inspire people and sustain their motivation. There is also a section on what makes a good coach. I thought it was interesting that especially at the early stages, the “talent” of the coach is not very important.

Overall, I found this book to be well worth the read. The author was engaging, the content was interesting, and the message was inspiring. Anyone can be good at anything with the right type of practice and sustained effort. Most importantly, now I also have a new tactic to help my kids work through challenging tasks. I can explain to them how their brain is actually changing as they struggle, getting faster and stronger with every mistake they make. I can also refer back to many of the famous real-life examples included in this book, such as Mozart or Michael Jordan. (Also, I bought my kid a futsal.) (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Click here for more Parenting Book reviews.

Related Links:

Parenting Books on Education
Learning Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post The Talent Code appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children
Author: Thomas Gordon
Publication Year: 1970
Website: www.gordontraining.com
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review: The main premise behind Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) is that parents should never have to use their power over their children. Parents should be so effective at parenting that they will not need to use threats, bribes, or other coercive measures. The parent-child relationship should be based on mutual respect. As a result, kids will (supposedly) not go through the typical teenage rebellion stage where they pull away from their parents and parental authority.

What I love most about this book is the very analytical way the book looks at kids’ behavior. It basically says that all behavior can be classified into two bins: acceptable and unacceptable, problem or no problem. If there is no problem, everyone is happy. If there is a problem, the parent needs to determine who the problem belongs to: the parent or the child.

Examples of a child-owned problem are misplacing items, problems with friends, or not making a sports team. Many times, parents get involved in children’s problems by trying to solve them or distract them. Instead the author claims there is only one appropriate response to situations in which the child owns the problem. This technique is called active listening. If the child tells their parent about a problem, the parent should basically repeat back what the kids say, using new words, to try to make sure they understand the child’s feelings and underlying message.

The first day I read this, my husband and I decided to try it almost as a joke. We made an agreement that when our kids were having a problem, we would just parrot back what they said. The next day I read that we are definitely NOT supposed to parrot. Instead the parent needs to rephrase the child’s words. However, I have to say that even the parroting went pretty well. A child would come to us saying “He stole my toy!” We’d give them all our attention and parrot back, “Oh no! He stole your toy!,” they would look at us slightly confused for a moment, say, “Uh-huh,” then walk away to go play somewhere else.

I think at first, they may have just been confused by our odd behavior, but we’ve both been making an effort to use the technique correctly with our kids for a couple weeks now and I can see a real difference. It turns out a lot of the time kids do not want us to solve their problems. They just want us to listen to them and understand what they are saying and why they’re upset.

In the second case, the parent owns the problem. This involves behavior like kids not picking up their toys, interrupting, or being too loud. In this case, the author recommends not using active listening, but instead sending “I-messages” that center around how the parent feels. For example, instead of saying, “YOU are a lazy slob” the parent should say something like, “I feel frustrated that our house is so messy.” In this way, you don’t blame or shame the child, but instead give them the opportunity to solve the problem on their own.

In order to send an effective I-message the parent needs to describe the behavior, how the parent feels about the behavior, and convey the effect the behavior has on the parent. One example given in the book is when the child is late coming home, the parent should say something like, “When you didn’t call to say you would be late, I was worried. That distracted me from my work.” Many times, in trying to come up with the third piece of the message, parents realize that there is no tangible effects and as a result, the unacceptable behavior will seem slightly less offensive.

Even after active listening and sending I-messages, there will be times when the parent’s and child’s needs are in conflict with each other. Rather than the parent giving in to the child or forcing their own solution, in which case there is a winner and a loser, the author recommends committing to finding a “no-lose” solution in which both parties can live with the agreement. The author gives lots of detailed tips on how to work your way through this process to find a creative solution.

So far, I’ve tried this a handful of times always with at least some degree of success. A few weeks ago, I tried this with my oldest son’s piano practice. I want him to do piano. He wants to have enough time to play and do fun stuff and feels like piano practice interferes with his priorities. After active listening to his feeling and sending my own I-messages, we came up with an agreement in which if he gets his practice done (no matter how much he complains or messes around), my husband or I will play a game of pool with him. We’re going on 3 weeks, and he’s so happy to play pool that not only is he getting his practice done, but the complaining and messing around have decreased significantly.

What I didn’t learn from this book was how to deal with my kids flipping out in public when they don’t get what they want. For example, if we need to leave someplace fun and one of my kids REALLY wants to stay. In that case, we clearly both have a conflict, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to try to find a “no-lose” solution. In those cases, I end up reverting back to using my parental power by making some sort of threat or bribe to get us out of the situation.

I’m also not sure what to do when my kids have conflicts with each other. Sometimes my active listening to both of them doesn’t seem to be enough. In that case, I also end up forcing a solution (which usually involves time-outs for both of them when I get fed up enough). In the couple instances when I’ve tried to take the time to help them find a no-lose compromise, I’ve been very pleased by the good attitudes and feelings that come after, but it’s hard to find the time to do that for the multitude of mini-conflicts that occur throughout the day!

I know I’m not a perfect parent and never will be, but I really feel like this book has given me an ideal to aim for and the tools to help me get there. I like it so much, I’ve ordered the sequel, P.E.T. in Action, from 1975. I’m eager to glean even more wisdom from this author. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Click here for more Parenting Book reviews.

Related Links:

Parenting Books on Education
Math Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post Parent Effectiveness Training appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Author: Angela Ducksworth
Publication Year: 2016
Website: Related TED Talk
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review: The question of nature vs. nurture is timeless. Are people born with innate ability or is that ability grown and developed over their life? We all have some general sense that both are important, but how important is each. Through many fascinating examples, the author presents the case that talent is real, but as she puts it, “effort counts twice.” Some people are naturally faster at learning certain skills. However, the amount of hard work someone is willing to put into developing a skill is far more important than their genetics.

Grit consists of two elements. It is both how passionate or committed you are to your interests as well as how much you persevere in the face of difficulty. To be gritty you need to have a sense of purpose as well as the ability to follow through. Numerous studies examining people who have achieved something amazing, find that the best predictor of success is their level of grit, rather than level of ability or IQ.

Potentially the most important finding of this book is that grit can be grown. As with every other skill, with effort people can become more gritty. This book spends several chapters explaining how to grow your own grit. For example it is possible to cultivate your sense of purpose no matter your profession. You should also make a conscious effort to be more optimistic and develop habits.

As a parent, the section which was most relevant to me was how to cultivate grit in other people. The author reiterates several times that there is not currently extensive research on parenting and grit. However, she also recognizes that this is not an area of life where we can just sit back and wait. As a parent herself, using what she has learned about grit, she makes several sensible recommendations.

One of the findings she shares, which I have seen before in other books, describes how parents can differ in how supportive and demanding they are. Parents who are neither supportive nor demanding are neglectful. Parents who are demanding, but not supportive, are authoritative. Parents who are supportive, but not demanding, are permissive. Parents who are both supportive AND demanding are the ones the author calls psychologically wise. They are parenting for grit. (This parenting style has also been called authoritative and is the one we should all shoot for.)

She also spends a great deal of time talking about the benefits of extracurricular activities. In order to develop their grit, kids need experiences which are both challenging and enjoyable. They need to be able to make the connection that hard work pays off by improving and reaching an accomplishment which they find deeply satisfying. She argues that some experiences, such as school, are challenging, but not intrinsically rewarding. Other experiences, like hanging out with friends, are fun, but not at all hard. Extracurriculars such as music, dance, sports, art, etc. can be both. A coach or instructor who is both demanding and supportive is a valuable asset in your child’s life.

Not only is it important for kids to work on challenging activities that they enjoy, but it is important for them to pick at least one which they stick with. Dabbling in a variety of activities is not a good way to cultivate grit. The author recommends that by the time children reach high school, they should choose one or two of their interests and commit to improving at them for at least 2 years.

Overall, this book has had an enormous impact on the kind of parent I would like to be. Walking the line between supportive and demanding does not come easily. Helping my kids develop their abilities through effort while keeping their interests alive is not an area in which I currently excel. (I’m starting to become a Tiger Mom when it comes to getting my kids to practice piano.) However, after reading this book, I can now clearly see my ideal version of myself. I know what it is I want and I have an outline for how to get there. I can work with that. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Click here for more Parenting Book reviews.

Related Links:

Parenting Books on Education
Math Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students’ Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching
Author: Jo Boaler
Publication Year: 2015
Website: www.youcubed.org
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review: I became a fan of the author after discovering the free series, Week of Inspirational Math, on YouCubed.org. After checking out the author’s previous book, What’s Math Got to Do With It, from the library, I decided to spend some money on this book, Mathematical Mindsets. I’m glad I did.

Although it’s an easy read, I treated this book like a valuable textbook, highlighting my favorite passages for easy reference. Although a lot of the subject matter is repeated from her first book, I found it useful to have read both. However, if you were to only read one, this book is more thorough.

The main take-away from this book, in my opinion, is that there is no such thing as a math person. Furthermore it is harmful to perpetuate the misconception that some people are just more mathematically gifted than others. At first, this might SEEM like an oversimplification. After all, some people ARE just naturally better at math than others, right? According to this book, some people are faster at math than others, but speed is not what is important. It’s true that some people might pick up mathematical concepts more quickly than others, but having a deep understanding is what is really important. With effort, anyone is capable of eventually gaining this deep understanding. (Another way of saying this is that this book promotes a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, which plenty of research has shown is what we should want for our kids.)

The second most important thing I learned from this book is that there are ways of presenting math that would make more people actually WANT to put more effort into learning math. The mathematical exercises described in this book are challenging, but they actually sound fun. The author promotes group learning. She turns math into a social exercise where ideas are shared and discussed giving everyone a better understanding. As an engineer who works in a research lab, I definitely find this more like a real-world environment than the way math is typically taught with kids solitarily working through the same type of problem over and over. The best part of my job is “bouncing ideas” off my coworkers, trying to come up with a solution to problems that have never been solved before.

I also love that the tasks the author describes are what she calls “low floor high ceiling.” By this she means that they are accessible to everyone no matter their ability (low floor), but are still challenging enough that even the oldest and quickest students will not arrive at the answer right away (high ceiling). This allows a teacher to give the same exercise to not only a class with a wide range of abilities, but also to a group of kids with a wide span of ages.

Now honestly, I don’t know if this way of teaching always works well in real world situations. I’m sure the author chooses to highlight the most successful examples of her methods in practice. However, I really feel like if math were taught this way, many more kids would find math enjoyable and stick with it for longer. For that reason alone, I think this book is invaluable. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Click here for more Parenting Book reviews.

Related Links:

Parenting Books on Education
Math Activities for Kids
Best Books for Kids

The post Review: Mathematical Mindsets appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: Parenting with Purpose: How to Raise Well-Behaved Children and Build a Strong Parent-Child Relationship
Author: Nina V. Garcia
Publication Year: 2015
Website: Sleeping Should Be Easy
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Note: For a limited time, you can get a FREE Kindle version of this book. Offer ends October 22, 2015. Don’t miss it!

Note 2: I was given a free pre-release copy of this book in electronic format in exchange for an honest review. See the note above to get a free copy too!

Review: At 130 pages, this book is a bit shorter than most parenting books. However, it really takes the best parenting advice from all of my favorite books, such as Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids and How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk and distills them down to this compact guide filled with the best wisdom applied to young kids. And honestly, what parent of toddlers and preschoolers has time to read super long books? (…besides me, but I’m a weirdo…)

The author supports the gentle, respectful parenting techniques that I personally strive to implement with my own kids. However, I don’t always succeed. Laura Markham, in Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, uses a tough love writing style that frequently makes me feel guilty when I lose my temper and yell at my children. I still love that book, because it motivates me to do better. Nina Garcia, in this book, Parenting with Purpose, supports the same connection-based parenting philosophy, but is MUCH more understanding and forgiving when it comes to parents failing to follow through with these techniques in the heat of the moment. Her friendly, conversational writing style and understanding tone make this book easy and enjoyable to read.

Even though the author provides a lot of similar advice in this book as can be found in other connection-based parenting books, she also has several original ideas and interpretations that I found refreshing, interesting, and useful. For example, she describes the difference between distraction and redirection. I’ve always been a little uncomfortable distracting my kids during outbursts, because I sort of feel like it’s both a cop out and disrespectful to their feeling to change the subject completely when they are upset about something specific. However, the author’s redirection technique makes a lot of sense and not only respects their feelings, but uses the child’s misbehavior or meltdowns to help teach the child a better behavior.

I also appreciated the subtle distinctions the author made between concepts such as guilt and shame and her explanation of how praising for traits or qualities that require effort (such as intelligence) which is well-documented as a bad idea, is completely different than praising for inherent traits (like kindness or honesty). The author has a clear, concise writing style that is very effective and a unique perspective on many parenting topics.

Another aspect of this book which I found extremely helpful was that the author did not neglect to discuss incidences between siblings since many parenting books simply discuss how to respond to a single child during an incident. As the parent of 3 young children, 2 of which are twins, the author has plenty of experience handling these sorts of conflicts. As I am also the parent of 3 young kids, there were times reading this book when I honestly felt like the author was describing my life. She has a deep understanding of how young kids react in certain situations and is wonderful at motivating parents to see these events from the child’s perspective. (She describes an event involving a happy face sticker on page 59 that I swear happens to me at least once a month. From now on, I’ll respond better.)

Overall, this is the best parenting book I’ve found for families that have a child between the ages of 2 and 6. I’d recommend this book even more strongly to parents who have more than one child in this age range. If you support a gentle, respectful, understanding parenting philosophy which emphasizes your long-term relationship with your child over immediate results, then you will greatly enjoy and appreciate the wisdom contained in this book. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
Parenting Books on Discipline
General Parenting Books

The post Parenting with Purpose appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Title: The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Tell Your Family History, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More
Author: Bruce Feiler
Publication Year: 2013
Website: http://brucefeiler.com
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review: What I like most about this book is that it has actionable advice that I haven’t read about elsewhere. So much of what you read in parenting books is good advice, but redundant. (i.e. “Be more patient.” “Understand your child’s perspective.” “Be consistent.” “Routines are important.” And on and on and on.) It’s pretty rare to read something and think, “Hey, that’s a really good idea. I think I’m going to act on that right now.” However, this book had several bits of advice like that.

Basically, the concept behind this book is that the author used advancements and insights from unexpected and unusual fields of knowledge to figure out how to make families function more successfully. My favorite chapter was probably the first one discussing how Silicon Valley’s agile development techniques could be applied to families. I’ve already made a chart on my wall filled with post-it notes for tasks that need to be done, are in progress, and are completed. Each day I’m on a mission to move tasks over from the “To do” column to “In Progress” and from “In Progress” to “Completed.” I don’t think my productivity has been this high since having kids.

Some of the other ideas which I’m looking forward to incorporating either soon or when my kids are a bit older are family dinners (and possibly family meetings) as described in the book, learning about our family’s history, and developing a family “mission statement”. Other topics are interesting and helpful, but I don’t think I’ll be implementing any changes anytime soon, like the chapter on allowances, talking openly about sex and sexuality, and the one on military style bonding exercises. However, this is the kind of book that I would like to remember to read again in a couple years, because I’ll probably get more useful information out of it every time I read it. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
General Parenting Book Reviews

The post The Secrets of Happy Families appeared first on ResearchParent.com.

Review: I really, really enjoyed the first half of this book which is basically an autobiographical account of a very interesting woman’s experience living with and observing the parenting practices of a primitive, Stone Age culture. I could not put the book down when reading that half of the book. It is relevant not only to parenting, but to life in general. I was not an enormous fan of the second half of the book where the author theorizes on the effect of such an upbringing vs. modern practices on a grown individual. While I agree with a lot of what the author asserts, there are definitely pieces of her theory that I don’t agree with. (i.e. I do not believe that parenting techniques have anything to do with homosexuality.) However, I enjoyed the first part of this book so much that I would recommend this book to pretty much everyone.

What’s funny is that this book doesn’t really teach much. There are no baby-raising instructions or words of wisdom for how to deal with certain situations. Despite this, or maybe because of this, the book makes a lasting impression. Everything this book teaches could be summarized in a few sentences. Basically, hold your baby, love your baby, enjoy your baby, every moment of every day. As a result, your life (and your child’s life) will be simpler, happier, better. While that is really the heart of what this book teaches, reading it will make the message become ingrained and unforgettable. As a word of warning, this book will likely make you feel extremely guilty if you’ve ever let your child cry for long periods of time while you intentionally did nothing.

I read this book while pregnant with my third child. He is now 6 months old and I still find myself thinking back to this book on occasion as I’m appreciating the wonder that is my precious baby boy. I also think of this book when my boy is in distress and I’m not able to comfort him, like while driving in the car. I think, “Man, those primitive continuum babies would never have had to endure this torture.” It’s impossible to say if this book had any impact on his current temperament, but he is the easiest child of my three. I do put him down several times a day (in exersaucers, on blankets, in a jumper – I do live in modern society with modern demands, after all), but I never let him cry for more than a few seconds. Whenever he wants to be picked up, I do everything I can to go get him as soon as possible. Even when he’s sad, his face lights up when he sees me. I already considered myself to have used attachment parenting with my first two children, but I am definitely enjoying mothering my infant now in a way that didn’t seem possible before reading this book. (Personal Rating: 9/10)

Related Links:

Parenting Book Reviews
Parenting Books on Infants

The post The Continuum Concept appeared first on ResearchParent.com.