Raising a Responsible Child: How Parents Can Avoid Indulging Too Much and Rescuing Too Often

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: I am a professional in the field of child behavior problems and found this book to be very insightful. Many of the families I have come across with children who have severe behavior problems were exhibiting the overindulgent behavior Ellis describes in this book. The concepts are very easy to understand and she gives great examples. I liked the beginning of the book the most. the second half, focusing more on child development - was less interesting to me. As a supervisor of a family counseling program, I assigned my couselors to read a chapter a week and we discussed it weekly. Everyone was in agreement that the book has excellent advice and touches on the "roots" and causes of many of the problems of children today.

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: I am a professional in the field of child behavior problems and found this book to be very insightful. Many of the families I have come across with children who have severe behavior problems were exhibiting the overindulgent behavior Ellis describes in this book. The concepts are very easy to understand and she gives great examples. I liked the beginning of the book the most. the second half, focusing more on child development - was less interesting to me. As a supervisor of a family counseling program, I assigned my couselors to read a chapter a week and we discussed it weekly. Everyone was in agreement that the book has excellent advice and touches on the "roots" and causes of many of the problems of children today.

Rating:
Summary: One excellent book!!!!!
Review: I've read this book over & over. It is a wonderful guide to teaching kids to cope with a very complex often scary world. Mothers, especially, are often told that if they work & leave their kids to their own devices, they're "bad" mothers. I'm so glad to see that this book makes the point that it is learning to do things on your own that you learn to cope with life, not by having a parent hover over you all the time & rescue you. The book does a wonderful job with case studies & illustrations of how too many parents confuse dependency with emotional closeness. The book also suggest very practical solutions as to how parents can break that dependency & push their child to grow up with their age. I loved the point that the book made that kids need to learn that life can be difficult at times, not to expect everything to come out perfectly, to learn to cope with disappointment, having to struggle, having to feel unhappy at times, & understanding that you have to work to get ahead in the world...no one can GIVE you a life. This is one great book.