Skip to main content

Favorite Parenting Books- Part Two


Oh, sighhhh! I voice of sanity amidst the madness. What a relief it was to read this book! By nature, I am not an overly protective parent. I leaned free-range before I picked up this book. Still, this book freed me from so much fear and anxiety, it was completely empowering. Skenazy sums it up this way, "Free-Range Kids is a commonsense approach to parenting in these overprotective times."  We are raising our kids in an era of manufactured fear. It is so hard not to by into all the hype when it comes to our kids.  Skenazy does a brilliant job of evaluating our overblown fears and works to give us a realistic perspective.When my mom was a kid, she didn't wear a seat belt in the car and she roamed outside with her siblings with little supervision. Skenazy would say there is no question- our kids should wear seat belts, it keeps them safer. They should also be allowed outside to play, even without you standing guard the whole time. Crime rates happen to be lower then when my mom was a kid (who knew?) and the risks of being nabbed are no higher. It is our media fed fear that has shot through the roof. I find fear to be the most paralyzing emotion and it is my firm belief that we are never our best when we are coming from a place of fear. Eliminating much of my fear with Skenazy's logical and well researched book has made me a better parent.


 I watch my kids do homework and I marvel. I vaguely remember a time when I went to the library and laboriously looked things up when I needed to write a paper that involved research. This modern world can be magnificent. It can also be damaging. Palmer says, "The best way to 'detoxify' childhood is to focus on what children need for healthy development, and how we can meet these needs in a 21st century context." This book provided much food for thought. Utilizing the best our modern world has to offer while making conscious choices that mitigate the things that will be detrimental to my children is the kind of intentional parenting I aspire to. I was better prepared to do that after reading this book. It covers a gamut of issues, including TV and other media, diet, sleep, communication with our kids, schooling and education and advertising. By the time I finished this book, I felt like a had a good grasp of the issues we are facing. Not only that, but I was armed with down to earth, realistic strategies to help me navigate the challenges we inevitably face parenting in the modern world.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Media Literacy How-To

Following my last post on media literacy, which focused on girls, I received this question from Lindsey, “ Can you share some dialogue examples for pointing out the dehumanizing tricks? I want to help my boys recognize this, but I haven't been able to come up with a succinct way of talking about it.” Photo Source  I hate to include examples of advertising that I find so abhorrent, but we must understand what we are up against. Since I didn’t acknowledge it in my last post, let me say here that the harm wrought on girls by media and advertising in no way exceeds the damage to boys. Levin and Kilbourne  explain, “Boys learn to look at girls as sex objects, they really learn a lot about how to treat girls. At the same time, boys are seeing images of being violent, tough and macho which go against being able to have caring connective relationships when they grow up.” How sad. Our boys are hit constantly with a double whammy (be tough and girls are objects to be manipulated

Go To Hell, It's Summer!

 Yesterday was the last day of school for my three oldest kids. I feel like I just crossed the finish line of a marathon, hands on my knees gasping for air.  The past few weeks I’ve passed other parents at bus stops, in school hallways, on field trips and returned their dazed looks with “how are you?” The predominant refrain is, “you know, June is crazy.” Yes, I know. Here is a sampling of what has been added to my already full schedule this month. Three separate choir concerts, a dance recital, 6 field trips, an end of the year medieval celebration, my daughter's formal “spring fling dance” and middle school graduation. Somewhere in there is the pressure to get (or even worse- make) a grand thank you gift for all my kid’s teachers and the guilt of failing, again, to do this simple task that everyone else seems capable of. Top that off with under-slept kids frantic about finals, excited about yearbooks and over sugared from end of the year celebrations. As I drop my daughte