Parenting School

We probably went to school for what felt like a very long time. We probably took care with our homework. Along the way we surely learned intriguing things about equations, the erosion of glaciers, the history of the Middle Ages, and the tenses of foreign languages. But why, despite all the lessons we sat through, were we never taught the really important things that dominate and trouble our lives: who to start a relationship with, how to trust people, how to understand one’s psyche, how to move on from sorrow or betrayal, and how to cope with anxiety and shame?

From renowned parent expert Caroline Maguire, Why Will No One Play with Me? is a groundbreaking program that has helped thousands of children struggling with social skills to make friends, find acceptance, and have a happy childhood. Every parent wants their child to be okay - to have friends, to be successful, to feel comfortable in his or her own skin. But many children lack important social and executive functioning skills that allow them to navigate through the world with ease.

Why America's sons are underachieving, and what we can do about it. Something is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere 20 years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically. In Boys Adrift, Dr. Leonard Sax delves into the scientific literature and draws on more than 20 years of clinical experience to explain why boys and young men are failing in school and disengaged at home.

We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow technical fields: quadratic equations or bioengineering; economics or pole vaulting. But we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us across a range of tasks: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, suggesting a fellow passenger turn down their music, changing the world. This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it and how we can acquire more of it in our lives.

There's always that moment as a parent when you feel like no matter how hard you're trying, you just can't quite get it 'right'. But the fact is, parenting is hard and once we know this and why, we can forgive ourselves for finding it a struggle, and start to look for the things that make parenting a joy. Parenting for Humans is a book first and foremost for parents. It explores what we bring to the parenting journey and how we can gain confidence in ourselves not just as parents, but as whole human beings.

Back in 2005, the first edition of Why Gender Matters broke ground in illuminating the differences between boys and girls—how they perceive the world differently, how they learn differently, how they process emotions and take risks differently. Dr. Sax argued that in failing to recognize these hardwired differences between boys and girls, we ended up reinforcing damaging stereotypes, medicalizing misbehavior, and failing to help kids to reach their full potential.

The Happy Sleeper shows parents how to avoid and undo cumbersome sleep habits, putting their babies and little kids on track to a full night's sleep. Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright teach parents that babies have an innate capacity to self-soothe, as well as the brain machinery to sleep well. So why do many families struggle at night? Most do what works today, but don't notice when it's no longer needed tomorrow, and then push harder when it becomes a hindrance the day after that.

Once upon a time, mean girls primarily existed in high school, while elementary school-aged girls spent hours at play and enjoyed friendships without much drama. But in this fast-paced world in which young girls are exposed to negative behaviors on TV and social media from the moment they enter school, they are also becoming caught up in social hierarchies much earlier. No More Mean Girls is a guide for parents to help their young daughters navigate tricky territories such as friendship building, creating an authentic self, and much more.

They tricked you but you’re not trapped. We all got tricked into mundane lives. Sold a story and told to chase the ‘dream.’ The problem? There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you follow the main conventional narrative. So why don’t people change? Obligations and reputations. They end up chained, strained, and drained of their life force. Sad but true. Most people are miserable in one central aspect of their lives.

Michele Borba has been a teacher, educational consultant, and parent for 40 years - and she's never been more worried than she is about this current generation of kids. The high-achieving students she talks with every day are more accomplished, better educated, and more privileged than ever before. They're also more stressed, unhappier, and struggling with anxiety, depression, and burnout at younger and younger ages - "we're like pretty packages with nothing inside," said one young teen.

In The Family Firm, Brown professor of economics and mom of two Emily Oster offers a classic business school framework for data-driven parents to think more deliberately about the key issues of the elementary years: school, health, extracurricular activities, and more. Unlike the hourly challenges of infant parenting, the big questions in this age come up less frequently.

Worried about mean girls? Help your daughter respond and react to bullying where it starts - in elementary school.

Are you tired of yelling matches and feeling like you're losing control when your child acts out? Do you ever wish there was a pause button, so you could breathe and respond calmly to your child's outbursts? If so, "Anger Management for Parents with Kids 3-7" is the audiobook you need. This practical guide, grounded in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), will equip you with essential skills to transform tantrums into teachable moments—even if you've tried everything else.

In this groundbreaking book, parenting expert and acclaimed author of the bestselling book Simplicity Parenting Kim John Payne, M.Ed., flips the script on children’s challenging or defiant behavior and lays out an elegantly simple plan to support parents in establishing loving, age-sensitive boundaries that help children feel safe and settled. In short: What looks like misbehavior is actually your children’s signal that they’re feeling lost, that they are trying to find direction and looking to you to guide them back on course.

School taught us specific subjects, like maths and history. But the most important situations we face as adults were never discussed with us when we were students. We weren't taught these skills in school, and this makes all the success stories we hear about seem out of reach; it makes us feel dumb. We aren't dumb, we just don't know how to work the system.

Homeschooling can be a tremendous gift to your children—a personalized educational experience tailored to each kid’s interests, abilities, and learning styles. But what to teach, and when, and how? Especially for first-time homeschoolers, the prospect of tackling an annual curriculum can be daunting. In Home Learning Year by Year, Rebecca Rupp presents comprehensive plans from preschool through high school, covering integral subjects for each grade, with lists of topics commonly presented at each level, recommended resource and reading lists.

Parents who are deeply invested in their children's education can be hard on themselves and their kids. When exhausted parents are living the day-to-day grind, it can seem impossible to muster enough energy to make learning fun or interesting. Author Julie Bogart distills decades of experience - homeschooling her five now grown children, developing curricula, and training homeschooling families around the world - to teach parents how to make education an exciting, even enchanting, experience for their kids, whether they're in elementary or high school.

In our stressed-out culture, too many parents are just coping rather than thriving, juggling demands on their time and energy, and tuning out their inner voices and deeper visions for family life in order to keep their heads above water. There is a better way. Coaching parents through his holistic health practice, Dr. Steven Fonso has helped thousands of families reconnect with what matters most: slowing down to savor authentic moments of connection and letting go of the noise and stress that all too often get in the way.

The secret to raising the happiest kids in the world? Whatever it is, it's somewhere in the Netherlands. Kids in the US face lots of pressure to excel - often at the expense of happiness. But does it have to be this way? Not in the Netherlands! In The Happiest Kids in the World, expats Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison - both married to Dutchmen and bringing up their kids in the Netherlands - examine the unique environment that enables the Dutch to turn out such well-adjusted, independent children.

Rex Forehand, PhD, and Nicholas Long, PhD, have helped thousands of parents achieve discipline using positive reinforcement, without yelling or harming the child's self-esteem. Their clinically proven, five-week program gives you the tools you need to successfully manage your child's behavior, giving specific factors that cause or contribute to disruptive behavior, ways to develop a more positive atmosphere in your family and home, and strategies for managing specific behavior problems.