Personal Child

One basic need all children have, educator Alfie Kohn argues, is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they screw up or fall short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as punishments (including "time outs"), rewards (including positive reinforcement), and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they please us or impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful and largely unknown research detailing the damage caused by leading children to believe they must earn our approval.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question. Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”

Cutting-edge research reveals that parents can play a huge role in helping toddlers and preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) connect with others and live up to their potential. This encouraging guide from the developers of a groundbreaking early intervention program provides doable, practical strategies you can use every day. Nearly all young kids - including those with ASD - have an amazing capacity to learn. Drs. Sally Rogers, Geraldine Dawson, and Laurie Vismara make it surprisingly simple to turn daily routines like breakfast or bath time into fun learning experiences.

Behind nearly every adult who is accused of a crime, becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol, or who is severely mentally ill and acting out in public, there is usually at least one extremely stressed-out parent. This parent may initially react with the bad news of their adult child behaving badly with, "Oh no!" followed by, "How can I help to fix this?" A very common third reaction is the thought, "Where did I go wrong - was it something I said or did, or that I failed to do when my child was growing up that caused these issues? Is this really somehow all my fault?"

In the best-selling tradition of Smashed and The Glass Castle, this raw, eye-opening memoir tells the powerful story of Elizabeth Garrison's fractured childhood, descent into teenage drug addiction, and struggle to overcome nearly insurmountable odds. Elizabeth invites the listener behind the closed doors of a picture-perfect Christian family to reveal a dark, hidden world of child abuse, domestic violence, and chilling family secrets all performed in the name of God under the tyrannical rule of her father.

We're all a product of our childhood, and if you're like most people, you have experienced some form of childhood trauma. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at the root of nearly all mental health disorders. Memories associated with ACEs imprint on a child's brain, and can manifest themselves mentally and physically throughout adulthood. So, how can you begin healing the deep wounds of ACEs and build strength and resilience? In this innovative workbook, trauma specialist Glenn Schiraldi presents practical, evidence-based skills to help you heal from ACEs.

Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD is the first and only book to provide a completely parent-based treatment program for child and adolescent anxiety. Parents will learn how to alleviate their children's anxiety by changing the way they themselves respond to their children's symptoms - importantly, parents are not required to impose changes on their children's behavior. Instead, parents are shown how to replace their own accommodating behaviors with supportive responses that demonstrate both acceptance of children's difficulties and confidence in their ability to cope.

Understanding Girls with ADHD does not shy away from key areas of controversy. How, for example, can a family know whether it's ADHD or another set of problems that's the primary issue? How does one deal with the potential use of medication, which is plagued by bad press and abundant myths but which can, as part of a multi-faceted treatment plan, provide great benefit if the right dose is found and if the doctor works with the family to monitor positive effects and side effects carefully?

Since the publication of Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, many thousands of people have learned that invisible Childhood Emotional Neglect, or CEN, has been weighing on them their entire lives, and are now in the process of recovery. Running on Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships will offer even more solutions for the effects of CEN on people's lives: how to talk about CEN, and heal it, in relationships with partners, parents, and children.

The Complete ACOA Sourcebook is a compilation of three of Dr. Woititz's classic books, addressing head-on the symptoms of The Adult Children of Alcoholics syndrome and providing strategies for living a normal life as an adult. Listeners will find help for themselves: at home, in intimate relationships, and on the job. They will discover the reasons for the way they think, believe, and feel about themselves; ACOAs often feel isolated, have difficulty in relationships, in the workplace, and in feeling good about themselves.

In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Doucleff sets out with her three-year-old daughter in tow to learn and practice parenting strategies from families in three of the world’s most venerable communities: Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. She sees that these cultures don’t have the same problems with children that Western parents do.

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them. Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans.

Have you ever opened your mouth to discipline your child, and your parents' nastiest words tumble out? In an era when most parenting books focus on the child, this book supports parents in dealing more positively with themselves, as well as their toddler-to-school-age children, offering specific tools to stop policing and pleading with kids and start being the parents we want to be. Based on Dr. Bailey's more than 25 years of work with children, this book explains that how we discipline ourselves is ultimately how we discipline our children.

Being the parent of a smart child is great - until your son or daughter starts asking whether global warming is real, if you are going to die, and what will happen if they don't get into college. Kids who are advanced intellectually often let their imaginations run wild and experience fears beyond their years. So what can you do to help? In Why Smart Kids Worry, Allison Edwards guides you through the mental and emotional process of where your child's fears come from and why they are so hard to move past. Edwards focuses on how to parent a child who is both smart and anxious.

There is no bigger public health story now than the collapse in youth mental health. The numbers are terrifying and dominate our headlines. There has been much debate over how we got here, and what to do next, and bestselling author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt is at the white-hot center of that discourse. Haidt has spent his career speaking wisdom and truth into the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the perfect storm contributing to a public health emergency for Gen Z.

We often struggle to let some people go, especially when they made that decision. We question the universe, we question ourselves, and we question everyone around us but we never truly get our answers. Letting someone go takes time, patience, and commitment to actively stop ourselves from relapsing and thinking about that person again. The Art of Letting Go helps you understand why, how, and when you should let someone go so you can move on and never look back.

We’re in the midst of a parenting revolution that is radically changing the way we raise our kids. Gone are the days of minimizing emotions: Don’t Cry. You’re Fine. Don’t Make a Scene. As our understanding of developing brains has increased, today’s parents are looking for a new way to help their children understand their feelings and learn to process them.

Written by a pediatrician and based in proven-effective mindfulness techniques, this book will help you and your child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) keep calm, flexible, and in control.

A victim of her mother’s Munchausen by proxy and child abuse survivor, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard’s unique and controversial case made headlines across the world. Now, she’s finally free to start living her life on her terms—and to tell her own story as only she can.

How does trauma affect a child's mind—and how can that mind recover? In the classic The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Dr. Perry explains what happens to the brains of children exposed to extreme stress and shares their lessons of courage, humanity, and hope. Only when we understand the science of the mind and the power of love and nurturing can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child.