Kids Development

Many of us know we're putting too much pressure on our kids - and on ourselves - but how do we get off this crazy train? We want our children to succeed, to be their best, and to do their best, but what if they are not on board? A few years ago, Ned Johnson and Bill Stixrud started noticing the same problem from different angles: even high-performing kids were coming to them acutely stressed and lacking any real motivation. Many complained that they had no real control over their lives.

One in every five kids suffers from a diagnosable anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, when parents or professionals offer help in traditional ways, they unknowingly reinforce a child's worry and avoidance. This audiobook exposes the most common anxiety-enhancing patterns-including reassurance, accommodation, avoidance, while offering exercises and techniques to change both the children's and the parental patterns of thinking and behaving.

There are lots of experts out there who will tell you they have the magic recipe to raising perfect humans. Gwenna Laithland is not one of them. She’s one of us. Frustrated, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Her relatable representation of parenthood validates our experiences. In Momma Cusses, Gwenna uses her signature style of snark and sarcasm to explain her interpretation of responsive parenting vs. reactive parenting and outline the steps she takes to raise her kids. Whether you are a parent or someone who has had a parent, we all need to learn how to handle our emotional spirals responsively.

As a woman used to traveling and living the high life in Bangkok, Leanne Shirtliffe recognized the constant fodder for humor while pregnant with twins in Asia's sin city. But in spite of deep-fried bug cuisine and nurses who cover newborn bassinets with plastic wrap, Shirtliffe manages to keep her babies alive for a year with help from a Coca-Cola deliveryman, several waitresses, and a bra factory. Then she and her husband return home to the isolation of North American suburbia.

Over her decades as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Mona Delahooke has routinely counseled distraught parents who struggle to manage their children’s challenging, sometimes oppositional behaviors. These families are understandably focused on correcting or improving a child’s lack of compliance, emotional outbursts, tantrums, and other “out of control” behavior. But, as she has shared with these families, a perspective shift is needed. Behavior, no matter how challenging, is not the problem but a symptom; a clue about what is happening in a child’s unique physiologic makeup.

Get rid of mom guilt, regain your sanity, and prevent burnout. Loving your kids isn’t supposed to mean you completely disappear or get swallowed up by the demands of motherhood. You want to be a great mother. But how do you care for yourself without neglecting your kids needs, feeling overwhelmed by guilt, or succumbing under the pressure to be perfect? Dr. Morgan—a psychotherapist and relationship expert—has helped over 100,000 moms regain their sanity and prevent burnout through her popular courses, coaching, and social media wisdom.

Rich Kid Smart Kid is written for parents who value education, want to give their children a financial head start in life, and are willing to take an active role to make that happen. In the Information Age, a good education is more important than ever. But the current educational system may not be providing all the information a child needs to thrive in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world. This book was designed to fill in the gaps and to give your child the same inspiring and practical knowledge that Robert’s rich dad gave him.

The 14 essential conversations to have with your tween and early teenager to prepare them for the emotional, physical, and social challenges ahead, including scripts and advice to keep the communication going and stay connected during this critical developmental window.

Dave Ramsey's New York Times best-selling guide to better living through financial security, now completely revised and updated.

In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology - more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity - has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation. Brain imaging research is showing that stimulating glowing screens are as dopaminergic (dopamine activating) to the brain’s pleasure center as sex. And a growing mountain of clinical research correlates screen tech with disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis.

School discipline is broken. Too often, the kids who need our help the most are viewed as disrespectful, out of control, and beyond help, and are often the recipients of our most ineffective, most punitive interventions. These students - and their parents, teachers, and administrators - are frustrated and desperate for answers. Dr. Ross W. Greene, author of the acclaimed book The Explosive Child, offers educators and parents a different framework for understanding challenging behavior.

In Worry Less, Parent Better, family physician and mother of five Dr. Karen Latimer tackles six major topics that plague the parent brain: food, sleep, health and safety, socialization, technology, and achievement. In each, she examines the problems at large that prompt worry, she identifies exactly what we worry about, and finally, she offers practical steps and tips for alleviating it so you can enjoy the journey a whole lot more.

Every parent loves their kids. They want to protect them from pain and give them all the opportunities and comforts they never had growing up. But by removing certain struggles, parents may unknowingly jeopardize their children’s future. What if you could give your kids a superpower to see the world in such a way that everything they encounter can be turned into something valuable for themselves and others. Value Creation Kid is a proven roadmap to give your children the capabilities and confidence to succeed.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

In How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research; on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers; and on her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large.

Being the parent of a gender-questioning child is confusing. There have been many books for parents who are facilitating a child's gender transition, but almost none for parents who decide that social or medical transition is not the best option for their child. Written by three professionals working in the field - Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano and Stella O'Malley - When Kids Say They're Trans is explicitly a resource for parents who want their children to flourish, but do not believe that hasty medicalisation is the best way to ensure long-term health and well-being.

As an experienced psychotherapist, I have seen many relationships strengthened with a hands-on approach to slow down the emotional rollercoaster kids and caregivers can get stuck on. From courses in ethics to family systems theory, I teach future clinicians how to put theory into practice in a meaningful way. I have seen that it is possible to use tools like mindfulness in the therapeutic process and that we model healthy behavior for our kids when we do.

The law of attraction is based on the idea that everything in the universe has a polarity, meaning that everything - from the food you eat to the people you talk to, to the things you say to the things you think - contains either a positive or a negative kind of energy. Notice that being with people who complain or rant a lot tends to make you feel bad, even though you're not exactly experiencing what they're going through - that's the law of attraction working its magic. When you focus on negative stuff, then more negative stuff will happen.

In the real world, people on the autism spectrum need the same kinds of day-to-day skills everyone else needs to be functional! It's true. No matter how high-functioning children with autism or Asperger's may be or may become, they function better as adults if they've had the chance to learn basic skills, from being on time to good personal hygiene. But many reach adulthood without those skills. Enter Jennifer McIlwee Myers, aspie at large.

From a Harvard faculty member and oral language specialist, an invaluable guide that gives listeners evidence-based tools and techniques to communicate more effectively with children in ways that let them foster relationships with less conflict and more joy and kindness.