Wise advice on how parents can escape the "superbaby syndrome," a rampant phenomenon afflicting parents with the anxious need to fill their child's life with purposeful, goal-oriented activity.

With the baby boom generation came the genre of parenting books that told parents how to teach their kids everything from toilet training to developing self-esteem. Generally the message has been: go easy on your child, but hard on yourself. It is starting to become apparent, especially in the best of families, that giving your kids lots of choices, validating their feelings at great peril to your own and providing "enough" individual attention for each child is creating a generation of kids over whom we have no control. Cassidy argues that this comes from over-thinking our role as parents. We've pondered every step so much that the juice, the joy, and worst of all, our confidence is gone. The reasons are clear: We have fewer children later in life so we've had more time to ponder. We've grown up just as research on infant and child development has come of age, so there's no shortage of material to think about. As a generation we've prided ourselves on self-improvement and we bring the same zeal to child improvement. We're less likely to live close to our families, and so are more likely to seek out expert solutions. To counter this thinking, Cassidy will suggest keeping the big picture in mind--what kind of people do you really want your kids to be? Honest, kind, cooperative, empathetic? It may mean losing sight of whether enough play dates are scheduled for the week and if you've positively reinforced the latest creative endeavor, but it will bring back your instincts about what is important to your family as a whole, and to your kids to become decent people.

One of developmental psychology's central concerns is the identification of specific "milestones" which indicate what children are typically capable of doing at different ages. Work of this kind has a substantial impact on the way parents, educators, and service-oriented professionals deal with children; and, therefore one might expect that developmentalists would have come to some general agreement in regard to the ways they assess children's abilities. However, as this volume demonstrates, the field appears to suffer from a serious lack of consensus in this area. Based on the premise that identifying relevant issues is a necessary step toward progress, this book addresses a number of vital topics, such as: How could research into fundamental areas (such as the age at which children first acquire a sense of self or learn to reason transitively) repeatedly yield wildly diverse results? Why do experts who hold to radically different views appear to be so unruffled by this same divergence of professional opinion? and, Are there grounds for hope that this divergence of professional opinion is on the wane?

The first three years of life are the most important for nurturing a childs full potential: thats when they start forming attachments, developing a sense of self, and learning to trust. During this time, there are critical windows of opportunity that parents can take advantage of-if they know how. In a dozen succinct yet information-packed chapters, award-winning columnist and professional therapist Dr. Jenn Berman gives parents the knowledge they need. Her enlightening sidebars, bulleted lists, and concrete, easy-to-use strategies will help parents raise happy, healthy babies…who grow to be flourishing toddlers and successful adults.

This book vividly encapsulates the absurdities, heartbreaks, and possibilities of contemporary child rearing. The book shows how parents today are all too often caught up in a guilt-driven pendulum swing between parenting too little and parenting too much. Dr. Ehrensaft suggests innovative ways to overcome the treacherous balancing acts of work and family demands. She invites us to replace perfect parenting with 'good-enough, ' trade harriedness for harmony, and give our children a healthier environment in which to grow.

CAN PARENTS AVOID THE OVERACHIEVEMENT TRAP AND STILL RAISE SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN? In America's hypercompetitive culture, children are being suffocated by our quest to make them the best. As competitive parenting has been on the rise since the 1980s, so have rates of teen suicide, eating disorders, depression, and drug use. Yet the cycle of "push parenting" doesn’t show signs of slowing down. Our children today are competing with classmates who began listening to Mozart in utero and were enrolled in educational classes at the ages of two and three. Under these circumstances, parents feel that they cannot afford to opt out. No More Push Parenting offers solutions for parents caught up by the need to push their children to the top, those parents who don't want to push but worry that their children may not measure up. With her fifteen-plus years of clinical experience, Dr. Elisabeth Guthrie provides targeted, prescriptive alternatives to the problem of push parenting, supported by the illustrative case studies of real children who are and aren't succeeding--and why. She explores the ways in which children are hindered emotionally and intellectually by the pressure to succeed that they often feel from parents on a daily basis. Helping parents discover the fine line between good parenting and pressure parenting, Dr. Guthrie provides them with the permission to do less pushing without sacrificing their ideals for their children, and offers techniques that they can use to deflect the pressure to push while still providing healthy encouragement. With tips for enhancing the development of every child's unique set of talents, the book is a vital reality check for anyone concerned about what's really best for kids.

Argues that since black children grow up in a distinct culture, they require 'an educational system that recognizes their strengths, their abilities, and their culture, and that incorporates them into the learning process'. -- Washington Post