meganursula: (william)
Raising Your Spirited Child REV EdRaising Your Spirited Child REV Ed by Mary Kurcinka

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book was recommended to me by the fine folks at UW-CHDD, as a result of some discussion I had with them about my son (who they felt might be 'spirited'). It is one of the most helpful parenting books I've read, period, and certainly the best one lately.

Interestingly, by the books definition, I'm not sure I would call my son 'spirited'. This personality is defined as having strong expression of a number of different traits. From my perspective, my son only has a couple of those traits (but has those in spades), and has fairly mild expression for many of the other traits. Still, I found this book to contain useful ideas and perspectives that were applicable to him, and perhaps to all children.

The book starts out talking about rhetoric - why one should call these kids 'spirited', not 'difficult', why my son is 'persistent', not 'stubborn'. I tend to feel that all this stuff is a bit bogus; I buy the arguments to some extent, but don't believe there is anything magical in a change of vocabulary. It is also the case that much of the advise is stuff that I know or read before - prevent trouble instead of reacting to it, your kids aren't to get you, emotion coaching is useful, etc. etc. As a result, I have a hard time putting my finger on why I walked away feeling so glad that I read this book.

But I have a few ideas:
1. The stories are from real people, who admit to yelling, or losing it, or taking a while to catch on to their kids. It is a book that admits to aspiration - to do better as a parent, not be perfect. There is a reality here that i have had difficulty finding in other books.
2. The book analyzes personality traits (both in the child and the parent) and how those traits might lead to problems. (In my case, i realized that my child was persistent, but didn't recognize until i read about it that he also responds to each new thing with a 'no'. Giving him time to process and change his mind was a hint worth the price of the book in itself.) It addresses each trait with ways to use it to the child and parent's advantage, not disadvantage.
3. There are a fair number of very concrete suggestions for modifying behavior to improve things.
4. In the end, I find myself hugging and appreciating my kid more, and getting frustrated with him less. And that's awesome.





View all my reviews


As an aside, i'm currently reading http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Emotionally-Intelligent-Child-Parenting/dp/0684838656 which is a book that i am not enjoying nearly as much, but one which has advise that i believe dovetails into the previous book's advice fairly well.
I also read this blog sometimes:
http://www.ahaparenting.com/_blog/Parenting_Blog/post/Preventive_Maintenance_to_Keep_Your_Child_Out_of_the_Breakdown_Lane/
and while it seems to have the same advice in some ways, i usually leave reading one of those posts thinking 'have these people ever actually met a child?!'.

hum

Apr. 18th, 2011 10:41 pm
meganursula: (contemplative)
My stack of books to read is growing out-of-control. As is my relationship with Amazon. I haven't even looked to see what this month's book-club-book is. I really want to read them all, though.

books

Jan. 13th, 2011 10:26 pm
meganursula: (contemplative)
Well, i'm trying GoodReads, with my other obvious user id.
meganursula: (contemplative)
but before i just start a new blog - is there some sort of website i should be using to track my books?
a big criteria is that i'd need to be able to share with people who weren't members of that community. (Eg., a Ravelry corollary would not do.)

bookstores

Sep. 10th, 2009 11:15 am
meganursula: (letour)
Now that i'm mostly taking the bus, i read a lot. Its amazing how quickly i can get through books with a couple of bus rides a day. I remember this from Operation Overlord - that sudden rush of really being able to enjoy and get through my reading material. It is, i think, really the only benefit to riding the bus more often than my bike.

At any rate, i stopped at the bookstore on the way in, to pick up the next book in the series that i'm reading. I also picked up a book on gender differences - Pink Brain, Blue Brain. I'd actually gone into that area to pick up a new book from an author i'd read before (Alison Gopnik) called The Philosophical Baby, but they didn't have that one. Then i realize that this one (a review of which i'd read the other day), was written by Lise Eliot, who wrote my favorite so far development book What's going on in there?, so i picked it up. We'll see. I probably should have gotten a book about eating habits, or perhaps just relied on that other book i have at home for growth birth - 5 years, but, this seems more intriguing to me.

Digression, i guess. I'm in the middle of re-reading my pregnancy and labor text, in lieu of taking a review class. I'm hoping it will help me feel more confident about the upcoming event, which is basically the service the class provided last time around. I'd feel a bit better if i could start feeling more Zen about this pregnancy, but i don't feel like i'm quite in the zone yet. Anyone want to recommend books or exercises to prepare for a peaceful birth?

Maybe i should read a book about Zen, as i use that term all the time, and i'm not sure i'm ever using it quite right, not really being a Buddhist. I just don't have a better term for the place that i try to reach that i describe as Zen.

Anyway, i started out the post to describe how helpless i am in bookstores. I walked in for one pocketbook paperback, and walked out with one paperback, one hardback, and two kids books. Thats right - the child development books are right next to the kids books, so i also picked up a new number pop-up book and an alphabet puzzle book for Madeleine. Because i'm a tool, and hopeless about book stores. And hopelessly excited that Madeleine is starting to learn to count and recognize letters.

(Any good ideas about children's music, btw? I think the girls need more music in their lives.)

I think, in January, we are going to have to start a regular library run.

I also got breakfast, having run too late to eat at home this morning. And a Mocha. I think i should cut back on the caffeine, too, but, hey, delicious. All before i even got to work.
meganursula: (mom)
i'm still on my reading about parenting kick.

I have recently finished Parenting with Love and Logic. I got some things out of this book - the premise is that you always give your child a choice, you don't discipline, but rather let them experience the consequences of that choice. It seems to be aimed more at older children (kids don't develop logic until around the age of 5, so while i think you can give younger children choices, i don't think you can expect them to understand the logical outcomes of more difficult choices when they are toddlers - the book doesn't touch on this issue.) The positive things i got out of this book included ways to frame choices so that they make sense to a child, and some ideas for how to ensure that making a choice resulted in logical consequences. (Choosing to yell at a restaurant must, at some point, result in not being allowed to remain in the restaurant.. even though this is hard on the parents.) Things that did not resonate with me included the extremes to which this approach was advocated (children arguing in a car are made to walk home, or children are expected to learn that not doing homework results in bad grades. I do not like the former because i don't think it is practical with our lifestyle and urban setting, and i do not like the latter because i do not think that kids are able to see the long term consequences of getting a bad grade in any meaningful way.), and also what felt to me like really manipulative suggested dialog. (Parents are encouraged not to say something like, 'You can choose to stop biting me, or to go to your room' because it smacks of offering a 'punishment' for an action. Rather, it is suggested to say something like 'You should feel free to come back to the living room when you are no longer biting me.' To me this is just taking the straightforward words away from the dialog, and i think any kid worth her salt will see right through it. It is exactly the sort of thing that would really piss me off if my parent used that type of phrasing. In fact, it annoyed me just reading through all the suggestions.)

As a result, i think i will try to retain ideas from this book, but not adopt it entirely. It does strike me that someone like Heidi might like it because it is entirely anti-punishment, and someone like Caitlin might like it because it discusses ways to incorporate the freedom the Fred advocates without losing the idea that there are consequences for actions.

At any rate, i'm also considering subscribing to a new parenting magazine. Are there any that people particularly recommend? I suspect i'll be happiest with something fairly balanced.

And, i think i might up and buy a text book for my next book - something on child development. Any recommendations there?
meganursula: (Default)
I belong to a book club, and i have for a long time. My feelings about this have gone up and down over the years, as have my feelings about the choices of books.

It is worth noting, though, that reading books that i wouldn't normally take off the shelf brings me a fair amount of pleasure. And i think it is terribly good for my brain and personal development.

In other news, what do you call books that are easy to read, and read for pure enjoyment. I used 'pulp' in the last post, but after some queries about this i realize that is wrong. 'Pulp' should probably be researved for the lightest of the light (and while i do read some pulp mysteries, i don't read too much of that anymore).

So, give me a word.

books

Jul. 29th, 2008 05:32 pm
meganursula: (contemplative)
Our bookclub book last month was The Supreme's Greatest Hits, which is about the Supreme Court, not the band.  
http://www.amazon.com/Supremes-Greatest-Hits-Supreme-Directly/dp/1402741073/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217378024&sr=8-1

I really would like to recommend this book, which takes you through a number of influential and important supreme court cases.  I enjoyed learning more details about cases that i have heard of, but never knew in detail.  I also enjoyed hearing how the supreme court interprets the constitution to affect the laws in the US.  I think its an important to read things like this sometime, because these are issues that do affect our lives and we should be aware of.  I liked this book because it was accessible and interesting.  

Profile

meganursula: (Default)
Megan Hazen

May 2020

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
101112 13141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 11th, 2025 08:27 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios