I'll Be The Parent, You Be The Child: Encourage Excellence, Set Limits, And Lighten Up

Front Cover
Hachette Books, 2007 M10 10 - 288 pages
With myriad parenting books available today, it's no wonder parents are confused by the range of opinions and quick fixes these books offer. I'll Be the Parent, You Be the Child leaves theories behind and gives parents of school-age children practical approaches for handling fundamental child-rearing issues. Out of a welter of parenting fads and on-going cultural upheavals, Paul Kropp answers parents' number-one question, "What is the right way to rear our children to become responsible, well-adjusted adults?" Kropp responds with irrefutable evidence that favors time-honored essentials for parenting success, from providing unconditional love to setting consistent rules-qualities we know are easily overlooked in favor of feel-good fads. Next he tackles specific, topical problems that concern parents most, offering advice that often runs counter to fashion but that parents will cheer. Topics include praise and its dangers; quality time, and why it never works; privacy, and why too much of it is a bad thing; allowance, and the true purpose of giving a child his own money; and much more.This is a bracing, often humorous, book that debunks easy, TV-style parenting and provides down-to-earth problem-solving that parents can really use, with lots of real-life examples.
 

Contents

1 Styles of parenting and what really makes us the parents we are
1
2 Kids can be born rotten and grow up even worse if we help them
17
3 The family conference and other cases of adults acting like children and children forced to act like adults
31
Too much selfesteem can be dangerous to our kids mental health
45
5 Quality time is such a beautiful sham
57
Distraction is not discipline
71
How did a simple spank ever get confused with child abuse?
83
Little tyrants at restaurants and other public places
95
13 Helping our kids get the most from school without being too pushy
163
14 The attention deficit in ADD is probably ours
175
Adult in size doesnt mean adult in most other ways
187
16 Diapers can be disposable dads are not
201
17 Technology toys and tough parenting choices
213
Lets lend a hand
225
19 Ive never met an ideal parent but most of us do a prettydarngood job
237
Selected Bibliography
247

Kids are part of the family whether they like it or not
107
How the media have made parents and kids too fearful for their own good
119
Why arent our families like the Brady Bunch?
133
Most of the options are bad
147
Notes on Sources
251
Index
261
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2007)

Paul Kropp is the author of The Reading Solution. He is a teacher, an editor, and the father of five children. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Bibliographic information