20 Teachable Virtues: Practical Ways to Pass on Lessons of Virtue and Character to Your Children

Rating:
Summary: Great book and worth of reading
Review: This book is written for parents/families with children of any age - from young children through the teenage years. Each chapter has an example family that is having a problem with a virtue covered in a chapter. In most chapters, the siblings in the family argue and do not get along. Well, not only this book has great ideas and examples of how families can teach different virtues to their children, but it also shows examples how to encourage the siblings in the family to get along and be kind to each other.

The structure of the book allows you to read any chapter as you choose. You don't have to read it from the beginning to the end. Say, your family has a problem with Respect - you can open a chapter on Respect and read it all by itself.

I found this book to be very refreshing. The chapter on Respect is a great one. If you want to teach your children Respect, YOU have to respect them and treat them with respect. For example, the book suggests treating your children, as they were guests in your house. It does not mean you have to serve them and drop all the rules. All it means - you will not yell at your guests for spilling a juice on the table and tell how clumsy they (your guests) are. Then why should you yell at your children?

This book is not only for "middle Americans living in a white suburb" - all children of all ages need to have empathy and respect to self and to others. I don't think it's meant to be applied in the classrooms. This book is written for parents raising children - working or staying home. Also, I don't think that the book "makes an assumption that parents are O.K". I think a lot of parents, while they read this book, may revalue their own behavior and the way they handle different situations and their own children.

The review above says: "parents need to be less arrogant and realize that we teach virtues to children by modeling our own virtuous behavior. This is probably the major failing in this book". I disagree with this remark. This is the message of the book - if you want to teach your children the virtues, you have to live your life by them.

Great book.


Rating:
Summary: Useful behavioral approach to raising young children
Review: Various virtues are examined from a behavioral/psychological approach.The commentary in terms of implementation seems to be focused ona small child or young inexperienced parent. My impression was the virtues were randomly selected without much order and connnection. I thought that the reccomendations were applicable to middle Americans living in a white suburb. The title teachable implied implied that these might be used in a classroom, It would have been nice to see a chapter or appendix suggesting how it might be used at school. After all, the problem that most parents are having is a lack of time and most teachers spend more time with children in today's culture than parents. This lack of time was not addressed by the authors. Finally, the book made the assumption that parents are O.K. and they themselves don't have room for improving their own virtues. I think all of us especially parents need to be less arrogant and realize that we teach virtues to children by modeling our own virtuous behavior. This is probably the major failing in this book. The writing style seemed choppy and made it difficult to follow the points of the authors.