Rating: 
Summary: I liked this one a lot!
Review: My wife and I are always arguing about how much to push our kids: I'm the one who takes the more relaxed position. I think that all this competitive parenting is out of control. Now I have something to point to when we get into a discussion. Dr. Guthrie looks at the big picture - something too many of us parents forget to do! And it helps to see how we're being sold this idea of 'perfection' for our kids and to know that you don't have to join the herd and in fact your kids will be better off if you don't. I've recommended this book to a couple of friends. I think if more people read it and relaxed about their kids 'achievement' in sports and school and everywhere, everyone - parents and kids - would be better off!
Rating:
Summary: I liked this one a lot!
Review: My wife and I are always arguing about how much to push our kids: I'm the one who takes the more relaxed position. I think that all this competitive parenting is out of control. Now I have something to point to when we get into a discussion. Dr. Guthrie looks at the big picture - something too many of us parents forget to do! And it helps to see how we're being sold this idea of 'perfection' for our kids and to know that you don't have to join the herd and in fact your kids will be better off if you don't. I've recommended this book to a couple of friends. I think if more people read it and relaxed about their kids 'achievement' in sports and school and everywhere, everyone - parents and kids - would be better off!
Rating:
Summary: Timely and Valuable
Review: Now here's a book on raising kids in today's high pressure world that is worth reading and remembering. I both enjoyed it and took away a ton of insights and helpful suggestions. Raising kids is no easy task and this book does not pretend it is. It does, however, help you put the whole process in perspective with a common sense, two feet on the ground approach. The easy, comfortable and, at times, humorous writing gives you the impression you are sitting on the front porch listening to a wise friend who has seen and heard it all. No doubt, this is a book that will be passed from parent to parent, or at least should be. I'm buying another copy for my brother; mine's all marked up.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful., Intelligent, Informative
Review: The Trouble With Perfect is an invaluable resource for all those raising children or working with families. As an educator, mother and grandmother, I have read countless books on parenting. If I had to recommend one book on the subject during these stressful times it would be this one. Dr. Guthrie demonstrates clarity, common sense and experience as she discusses dangerous assumptions regarding the definition of a "good parent." She writes about the pitfalls of parenting with humor, intelligence and great wisdom. The Trouble With Perfect is a valuable and practical resource for parents, educators, therapists, pediatricians and anyone else interested in learning what being successful parents and children really means.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, but, oops! at least one glaring error!
Review: these authors don't pull any punches about the pressures parents are under from our culture to raise "perfect" children, and I found their suggestions helpful.I would have rated this book 4 stars but for the glaring error on page 19, in which the authors mention, as an example of the folly of living for just one goal, Bill Johnson (1984 Olympic skier -- I think he medaled) being killed in a skiing accident while attempting a comeback last year at age 40. Bill Johnson is very much alive as of March 22, 2002, though he'll never be his former self. How ever did the copy editors let this one slip past them? I couldn't quite trust any of the other anecdotes from that page onward.
Rating:
Summary: A terrific resource for parents!
Review: This book was very reassuring to me as a parent of three boys. (There is hope!)There were wonderful tips on how to prepare children for the future, and enlightening comments on how to avoid the obvious pratfalls. I would recommend this to all parents who want their children to succeed in life.
Rating: 
Summary: A book for the very rich about the problems of privilege
Review: When I bought this book, I was hoping to read a sensitive exploration about the problems most parents face adjusting to who their children actually "are," versus who the parents want them to be. I expected a book with complex pyschological insight.
Instead the book seemed completely directed towards parents who can afford to send their children to all the "best tutors," the best vacations, the best schools, with the best clothes, the best cell phones... The book seemed to contain numerous lists of all the expensive things that upper class or upper middle class can buy their children. And then the book addressed the "suffering" and "disappointment" of having too much and expecting too much. I am sure most parents in this world would love to have the problem of being able to provide and give so much to their children. Yes, I am sure that children of such privilege suffer from their parents' high expectations, but much better to have children who suffer from privilege than not to be able to afford to send ones kids to college at all. The book was insular, self-absorbed, petty... If the book had acknowleged that the intended audience was the very, very rich, then I would not have felt so resentful of all the book seemed to take for granted.
In addition, there were very few useful pyschological insights; at best it was pop pyschologyl
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