Living Joyfully With Children

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Summary: This is the parenting book for the new millennium.
Review: It is my sincere desire to find the perfect words to do justice to the most remarkable book, Living Joyfully with Children. I want the reader to fully grasp the significant and valuable insights that are presented in it. A great many parenting books come across my desk, but none have "grabbed a hold of me" as this one did. The Sweets have written a life-transforming book and after reading it, you will never look at your children the same way again.

Win and Bill Sweet have crafted a blueprint for principle-centered parenting based on their own experiences as parents and grandparents. This is no dry, psychological treatise on child behavior modification, but rather a heart-warming and true-to-life compilation of essays that illustrates the principles of parenting that the Sweets used in raising their own children. The Sweets feel an important family principle is the concept of true Self. The best gift we can give our children is the knowledge of their true Self. But what is the true Self? The true Self is the self that we cannot see in the mirror; it is our perfect reality and essence. By seeing our children as magnificent little people with an unconditioned innate sense of their true Self, we, as parents and caregivers, can relax and drop our fears for them and instead trust their sense of true Self to guide them.

Children seem to have an intuitive sense that operates as a positive factor in their lives. The Sweets most certainly stress that parents must wisely guide their little ones out of hazardous situations and see to their physical well-being, but by seeing them in this new way, the fear is no longer there. It becomes so crystal clear that to live joyfully with children one must live without fear for them. This may sound idealistic and simplistic, but the Sweets show us how practical and successful this approach is.

One of my favorite chapters in the book is entitled, "An Invisible Resource." Here the Sweets talk about the emotional core of children and how we can! strengthen and nourish it or wound and damage it through our parenting techniques. If a child's emotional core is intact, he can face the world and handle any curves that life may throw at him.

The love and respect that the Sweets have for all children exudes from their every word. They have elevated parenting to an art form and have unselfishly devoted their lives to helping parents achieve joy and harmony in their family lives. There are many pearls of wisdom in this "sweet" little book. My only regret is that it wasn't around when my children were little so both they and I could have benefited from it. There were times that I had tears in my eyes as I read a particular passage that struck an inner chord in me, because the heart and soul knows truth when it hears it.

Living Joyfully with Children is the parenting book for the new millennium. As we enter into this new era old concepts and views will be shattered as more enlightening and liberating ideas will seize our imaginations and show us how truly joyous family life can be. This is the book that will lead the way!

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Summary: The Book Every Parent and Parent To Be Should Read!
Review: �Our challenge as parents is to cherish the children�s zest for life and incorporate it into a joyous atmosphere in the home.� So say authors Win & Bill Sweet in their amazing new parenting guidebook, Living Joyfully with Children. Here are a series of essays that move us away from traditional, culture-driven attitudes and worries about children, and into the freedom to discover true Self.

Living Joyfully with Children speaks to all the facets of life and growing up in that life. We learn that it�s ok for children to play, in fact, that�s their job. And it�s ok to cry (how many of us have admonished our children, �Don�t cry�?). How should we use the word, no? Why is it important to care for mom? What is the difference between educating and programming your child?

Win & Bill Sweet ask and answer the questions all good parents pose. Living Joyfully with Children is a how-to book filled with invaluable, straight-forward and deep wisdom. Another wonderful example is found in Chapter 23---Expectations. What should we expect from our child? �You can enjoy the magic of your children as you set yourself and your children free of the expectations of what they should be doing according to the culture. This freedom releases them to be who they are.�

Living Joyfully with Children is all about that freedom. Principle-centered parenting brings freedom and confidence to families and Win & Bill Sweet offer an unpretentious means to family living in this easy-to-use guidebook. This reviewer wishes it had been around when my children were growing up!

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Summary: The Sweets reveal the true meaning of "education."
Review: The Sweets have done an elegant job of revealing the difference between the kind of "cultural programming" most people accept as good education and the true goal of allowing our children to develop naturally into who they truly are. The theme of JOY runs through the fabric of this book showing by example how we can live joyfully with our kids. Not as teachers, but as examples and facilitators that allow children to learn what they need when they are ready. "Instead of overdirecting, allow children to make their own discoveries and solve their own problems."

Win and Bill Sweet ask us to give children the same freedom we give the plants in our garden; we don't tell our flowers when to bloom, we trust that we have prepared the soil well, then we let nature handle the timing. So with children. Each child has its own special rhythm of readyness of walking, talking or reading, the Sweets tell us, and our real work is to honor this rhythm in joy. In contrast, the culture tells us that it knows more about your child's rhythm of readyness than you or your children do. How silly. The Sweets show us how to step out of the cultural line and pay more attention to our children and less to what other people may think of us.

This book is recommend reading for anyone who suspects that our culture of consumerism, advertising, television and competition is teaching the wrong values. Living Joyfully with Children offers the tools a family needs to find the fun in life and get free of the puppet-string demands our society makes on us and our children. Although not a religious book, there is a sense of higher learning in the Sweet's work that stays with a person after the reading is over. If you are looking for a better, more joyful way of life for your family, this book will mean a great deal to you.

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Summary: The Book Every Parent and Parent To Be Should Read!
Review: The very best book I have ever read on parenting! I wish I had read it sooner. But, there's no time like the present to start a new way of parenting and new way of Living Joyfully With Children! "Principles" has become a common word in our household and has changed our family forever! Every parent or parent to be should read this book.

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Summary: This book is important!
Review: This book is important

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Summary: One of the Best Parenting Books Out There
Review: This is probably the best parenting book I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them. They bring out in the open a lot of ideas that I've felt about parenting and what I aspire to as a parent. Raising my child in a way that will honor who she is and nurture her to the best of my ability has always been my goal. The Sweet's give you steps and tips to achieve this goal especially when you're feeling overwhelmed with everything "out there" that can get in the way of your parenting plan.

I just hope they can put together an audio book so I can get my husband, a non-reader, to "read" it.

I've only read the book once so far, but plan to read it again, and again when I need some help.


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Summary: Living joyfully with children is possible!
Review: We wrote this book to share the wealth of experiences and insights about children and families that we have been gathering for over thirty years. What a joy it has been to share this wealth! We are gratified to see the favorable reviews and comments the book is receiving; for example, the highly regarded author, Joseph Chilton Pearce, wrote: "Living Joyfully with Children is a gem in every respect, one of the best how-to books for parents I have read: lucid, unpretentious, straightforward, admirably easy to read, and absolutely invaluable. I was truly surprised at its depth and wisdom and think I shall lug boxes of it along on my speaking trips. I am thankful that such works do come along."

This book describes our discovery of a parenting paradigm that works. It works because children feel honored and valuable which results in cheerful and cooperative children, and because parents feel supported and confident instead of afraid and confused by the parenting responsibility.

You will find simple but powerful ideas, principles, and examples that you may apply to your relationships with children of all ages. As you apply the ideas, you will see the barriers to joy dissolve and the children will experience a childhood that yields life-long benefits.

Our book is for parents, grandparents, and all caregivers of children. According to some readers, the book is valuable to all adults who have been a child. These readers report they have gained better understanding of the dynamics of their own childhood, which triggered insight into unwanted emotional baggage and eliminated it.

This book is about reaching UP and living a family life that is Joyful.It's about honor, appreciation, recognizing value, and JOY in family living.It's about building a sturdy family structure that beautifully supports the family as a whole and every member of the family as an individual. This book is about living a family life that's worth our time.

We wish for you, our readers, new views of parenting, children, and families so that you may always live joyfully with your children.

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Summary: Profound
Review: What a glorious book. Very Succinctly written and represents enormous thought. There are some aspects where the authors take a position that is hard to relate to. I only wish the authors talked candidly about some of their percieved shortcomings along with the values/thought processes that preciptated such insight.

i will be waiting for their next book

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Summary: This book is wonderful for anyone who has ever been a child!
Review: When I first read Living Joyfully with Children, I was single and seriously dating a wonderful woman who is now my wife. I read the book to gain insights into parenting and to become more open to the possibility of being a parent. The idea of being a parent truly inspired fear. My hope was that in reading this book, that fear could be eliminated and replaced with a joyful expectancy for parenting.

Well, I was thrilled and moved when I read this masterpiece and my hopeful expectations were far surpassed. This is a treasure chest of insights, principles, and tools for what I'm now certain will be an amazing parenting adventure.

The interesting thing to me is that I really expected this book to be solely for parents, grandparents, and guardians of children. But I discovered the vast scope of this book covered far more than the obvious. This is a book about living a joyful life, about understanding and discarding old incorrect beliefs and replacing them with what is really true. It is a book for grown-up children to help them understand their particular upbringing and why they're carrying baggage from their past.

Reading Living Joyfully with Children helped me have compassion for my loving parents and understand that they did the very best they could with what they knew at the time. The principles and tools in the book actually helped me make necessary corrections in my own conditioning and gain much freedom from my past.

I recently began rereading Living Joyfully with Children, because my wife and I are thinking seriously about starting a family. I felt a refresher course was in order, and I wanted to remind myself of the prospect of joyful parenting. I'm discovering a whole new world of information. It's like reading a different book! Reading it more than once is definitely a good idea.

My conclusion is that this book is clearly not just for parents, grandparents, and caregivers of children. This book is a wonderful tool for anyone who has ever been a child!

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Summary: This book ignites a revolution in parenting.
Review: Within this book lie secrets to loving, harmonious relationships with our children that I never could have dreamed of before I met Win and Bill Sweet. In fact, I think you have to be craving a revolution in parenting to be able to ingest these secrets, digest them, and make them part of you. You have to be willing to give up everything you ever thought was true about what you're supposed to do as a parent and about what's important . . . willing to say, "My gosh, I was wrong," and then turn 180 degrees and reframe everything you've been doing. This isn't just a book with pretty ideas and cute examples. It's a guide to freedom for both parents and children in the homes of those adults who can grasp its secrets and make them a way of life. How do I know? I went through the revolution guided one-on-one by Win and Bill long before they wrote the book. My children are 16 and 11 now, and life with them is full of laughter and joy and mutual support. Thank you, Win and Bill . . . bless your hearts.