|
Pressured Parents, Stressed-out Kids: Dealing With Competition While Raising a Successful Child | 
 enlarge | Authors: Wendy S. Grolnick, Kathy Seal
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $3.64
You Save: $14.31 (80%)
New (38) Used (13) from $3.64
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 634867
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 290
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 1591025664
Dewey Decimal Number: 649.1
EAN: 9781591025665
ASIN: 1591025664
Publication Date: February 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New Books! Orders usually ship with 24 hours!
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
It begins harmlessly. Parents casually chatting on the playground or over dinner compare their babies' first milestones: "Has Erin started talking? Danielle's already using five-word sentences!" Inevitably, Erin's mom and dad feel anxious. Later, as report cards, standardized tests, tryouts, playoffs, auditions, admission interviews, and social cliques fill their child's world, parents' anxiety intensifies. The older children get, the more competition they face, whether in sports, academics or the arts. Hovering in the background, inciting everyone, is the race for admission to a top-tier college. To help panicky parents deal with the torrential emotions stirred up by our competitive society, and to give them scientific knowledge about their children's growing years, leading child researcher Wendy Grolnick and educational and parenting journalist Kathy Seal offer this illuminating and accessible guide to channeling competitive anxiety into positive parenting. While evolution has given parents a genetic predisposition toward this protective anxiety whenever their children face today's heightened competition, the authors guide parents to avoid pushing and pressuring, turning their fear instead into calm guidance. Distilling the results of thirty years of research in child psychology, the authors focus on three essential feelings--autonomy, competence, and connectedness--which parents can foster in their children to maximize the child's chances of success and minimize family conflict. They explain that granting kids autonomy lets them feel that they can solve their own problems and are responsible for their own actions. At the same time, providing structure gives kids the guidelines, information, limits, and consequences that they need to act in the world, instilling them with a feeling of competence. Finally, support from adults in the form of time and other resources provides children with a necessary feeling of connection and helps them internalize the ideas and values of their caring parents. Reassuring and empathic, Grolnick and Seal show parents how to avoid the burn-out--in both parents and children--that afflicts so many in our highly competitive society, while raising children who thrive and excel.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Important Read for Parents April 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've read a number of books on this topic and "Pressured Parents, Stressed-Out Kids" is by far the best. Dr. Grolnick and Ms. Seal sympathize with the pressures we parents are facing and don't seek to blame us the way certain other authors do. They offer real solutions instead of just lecturing us on the evils of overscheduling and competition. I also appreciated their emphasis on balancing autonomy with structure. They aren't in favor of permissiveness, a refreshing attitude for this type of book. Highly recommended!
 From a Discerning Reader April 10, 2008
From Discerning Reader
This book is a very fluid read. It's different from a lot of other parenting books because it never makes you feel you're doing something wrong but yet you feel like you've learned something in every chapter. It explores some previously uncharted territory about parents and children. I found much of it fascinating, like the explanation of why we sometimes get unbelievably anxious about things involving our kids - for example when my son participates in a judo contest. Sometimes I really do get more anxious about stuff like that than he does! The authors say this is an evolutionary response that comes from our ancestors protecting their kids in the jungles and wilds. It gives you lots of practical tips to handle situations that you face with your kid, dilemmas about whether to push him to do things or just let her go him own way.
Insightful & engaging April 9, 2008
A young patient of mine, one who is highly stressed by having to excel in competitive sports, saw this book in my office, read the first paragraph, about a swimmer whose mother yells "faster, faster!" and begged to bring the book to her mother. The mother and I later discussed her goals for her daughter, understanding that it was natural for her to want her daughter to win, but that her pressure was contributing to her daughter's non-compliant behavior in other areas. Since then I put several copies of Pressured Parents in my waiting room, and parents have told me that they could not put the book down, and that they found this to be one of the few parenting books that was truly helpful. The authors are extremely thoughtful; their advice is insightful and the vignettes are highly engaging.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
