Rating: 
Summary: Peace restored to our home
Review: I've only read through Chapter 5, but our nights and weekends have been so much more peaceful since I've started this book. Even though the book is from the seventies, and you do have to adjust for that, it's advice is timeless and very helpful.It's really helped me not fall for my daughter's subtle manipulations of me as a parent. In learning why she is doing what she is doing, and how much she wants my attention, I have been able to give her the attention she needs in a much more positive way. The biggest help I got was from Chapter 3 and the discussion on encouragement. Please get this book if you're having power struggles and drama at home with the kids!!!
Rating:
Summary: Peace restored to our home
Review: I've only read through Chapter 5, but our nights and weekends have been so much more peaceful since I've started this book. Even though the book is from the seventies, and you do have to adjust for that, it's advice is timeless and very helpful. It's really helped me not fall for my daughter's subtle manipulations of me as a parent. In learning why she is doing what she is doing, and how much she wants my attention, I have been able to give her the attention she needs in a much more positive way. The biggest help I got was from Chapter 3 and the discussion on encouragement. Please get this book if you're having power struggles and drama at home with the kids!!!
Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive "how-to" on GREAT parenting stragegies
Review: It has been my "Bible" on child-rearing for almost 22 years, and has never let me down. Dreikurs not only provides insight into child behavior, but into adult behavior as well. I continue to recommended this book to the parents of my preschoolers.
Rating:
Summary: Second generation to use this book
Review: Just over 30 years ago, when I was expecting my first child, I did a parenting course here in Melbourne, Australia. The course was based on the original version of this book. My daughter and her younger brother were raised using the principles of "logical consequences" as in the book. This helped us all relate happily together, even during and after the separation and divorce of their father and myself. Now both my children are university educated, happily married adults. Even now, people comment on how delightful my children are and how, as a single parent, I must have been "lucky" to get such good kids. I know that luck had nothing to do with it! Last week I found that my son's wife is expecting my first grand-child. My son asked if I still had "the book". I don't know where it is now, but I am so glad to see that I can get him one from Amazon. I'll order 3; one for my son, one for my daughter and one for a "refresher" course for me. I wouldn't trust anything else!
Rating:
Summary: Second generation to use this book
Review: Just over 30 years ago, when I was expecting my first child, I did a parenting course here in Melbourne, Australia. The course was based on the original version of this book. My daughter and her younger brother were raised using the principles of "logical consequences" as in the book. This helped us all relate happily together, even during and after the separation and divorce of their father and myself. Now both my children are university educated, happily married adults. Even now, people comment on how delightful my children are and how, as a single parent, I must have been "lucky" to get such good kids. I know that luck had nothing to do with it! Last week I found that my son's wife is expecting my first grand-child. My son asked if I still had "the book". I don't know where it is now, but I am so glad to see that I can get him one from Amazon. I'll order 3; one for my son, one for my daughter and one for a "refresher" course for me. I wouldn't trust anything else!
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best childrearing book out there
Review: My in-laws raised my husband on this book, and he is quite a wonderful person. We intend to raise our children this way, too.
The book IS outdated, and I don't agree with 100% of it.
For example, research done since the book was written has shown that quick, consistent, loving response to a baby's cries builds trust and communication between the baby and its parents. So I would disregard the advice to leave a baby to cry.
Dreikurs is opposed to spanking, but it's because he doesn't think it works very well, not because he thinks it's inherently harmful or dangerous. So his advice to let other significant adults in your child's life use corporal punishment if they want to is off, I think.
Other parts of the book are outdated as well, but not in ways that would matter as far as changing parenting techniques. Well, you shouldn't leave your kids alone in a car, obviously, but other than that....
Why am I still giving his book five stars even with all of the above reservations? Because even WITH all of my reservations, I still think this is the best childrearing book I have ever read--and I've read a lot of them. It clearly outlines a parenting style that is neither authoritarian nor permissive, and contributes to loving relationships where people take responsibility for their actions. I can't recommend it more highly. If you have children or if you interact with them at all, do yourself a favor and read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Raise your kids on this book.
Review: My son was about 2 1/2 years old when I found "Children the Challenge" in a box of books I bought at auction. I started reading it and realized it put into words things I felt but couldn't articulate. All the things I said I wouldn't do to my children ( and found myself doing because my parents did ) I was able to change almost overnight! I guided 3 preteen step-children from wild uncontrolled children to at least respecting ( becaused they were respected ) and more coopertive members of our family. My son was raised on this book -- succesfully. Today, he is 15 years old, we are very close, he is very loving, and 97% of the time way talk our way through our problems. My mother, though all of this said most of what I was doing wouldn't work, but every 6-12 months she says how pride she is of him and what a good job I'm doing ( we've see her weekly all his life ). I've been a single mother for the last 8 years and I've kept his father very involved in his life ( don't fight-using the kids. READ THE BOOK ! ) This book really is the best. Two years ago my father checked Amazon.com for the book ( I couldn't find copies of it anywhere else, ( lost my original book when I loaned it to a co-worker)), and I ordered two copies, one for me and a friend. I'm going to order more for gifts ! I thank God I found it again. Questions ? E-mail me Chewbacca-wooky@juno.com
Rating:
Summary: Raise your kids on this book.
Review: My son was about 2 1/2 years old when I found "Children the Challenge" in a box of books I bought at auction. I started reading it and realized it put into words things I felt but couldn't articulate. All the things I said I wouldn't do to my children ( and found myself doing because my parents did ) I was able to change almost overnight! I guided 3 preteen step-children from wild uncontrolled children to at least respecting ( becaused they were respected ) and more coopertive members of our family. My son was raised on this book -- succesfully. Today, he is 15 years old, we are very close, he is very loving, and 97% of the time way talk our way through our problems. My mother, though all of this said most of what I was doing wouldn't work, but every 6-12 months she says how pride she is of him and what a good job I'm doing ( we've see her weekly all his life ). I've been a single mother for the last 8 years and I've kept his father very involved in his life ( don't fight-using the kids. READ THE BOOK ! ) This book really is the best. Two years ago my father checked Amazon.com for the book ( I couldn't find copies of it anywhere else, ( lost my original book when I loaned it to a co-worker)), and I ordered two copies, one for me and a friend. I'm going to order more for gifts ! I thank God I found it again. Questions ? E-mail me Chewbacca-wooky@juno.com
Rating: 
Summary: some good points but very out of date
Review: The author has much of value to say regarding the need to encourage children rather than criticize them, the benefit of avoiding power struggles and the egotistical need to be obeyed, and the increasing democratization of the family. However, his promotion of the dicredited, antiquated, and harmful techniques of schedule feeding infants and leaving them alone to cry betray the great age of this book and the incompleteness of the author's approach. In addition, passages in the book such as, "A child's purpose in life is to attend school just as a father's is to go to work and a mother's is to maintain the home.." and, "the current social crises of the integration of the negro into modern society" make it difficult to take this book seriously. The publisher should consider revising the contents of the book and not just the cover.
Rating:
Summary: Best way to raise responsible children
Review: There are so many confusing suggestions today about how best to raise children. This book offers a conprehensive, clear, concise method based in reality! It works! We raised our three children with Adlerian methods and are watching our grandchildren being raised the same way...a wonderful, practical proven method of parenting!
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