Parent Involvement
Parent Library
Parent Involvement >> Parent Library
Parents of students at Eltham North Primary School are eligible to borrow books from our Parent Library. There are many different titles on a variety of topics relevant to parents. Books can be borrowed by seeing Helen (our Library Technician) after assembly on Monday mornings. Loans are for a period of three weeks.
Examples of available books
Anxiety
Helping Your Anxious Child (2nd Edition): A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents
Ronald Rapee, Ann Wignall, Susan Spence, Vanessa Cobham, Heidi Lyneham. New Harbinger: 2008
Most children are afraid of the dark. Some fear monsters under the bed. But 10 percent of children have excessive fears and worries - phobias, separation anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety , or obsessive-compulsive disorder - that can hold them back and keep then from fully enjoying childhood. If your child suffers from any of these forms of anxiety, the program in this book offers practical, scientifically proven tools that can help.
Now in its second edition, Helping Your Anxious Child has been expanded and updated to include the latest research and techniques for managing child anxiety. You’ll learn how to help your child overcome intense fears and worries and find out how to relieve anxious feelings while parenting with compassion.
- Help your child practice “detective thinking” to recognize irrational worries.
- What to do when your child becomes frightened
- How to gently and gradually expose your child to challenging situations.
- Help your child learn important social skills.
Your Anxious Child: How Parents and Teachers Can Relieve Anxiety in Children
John S. Dacey and Lisa B. Fiore, Jossey-Bass: 2002
Your Anxious Child empowers you to teach your child essential coping skills for dealing with anxiety in engaging, creative ways. Through dozens of activities you can start using right now, your child will learn how to alleviate stress, build courage and trust, and become an innovative problem solver. Your Anxious Child is based on the acclaimed "COPE" program, which has been used successfully with children throughout the United States for more than fifteen years. The program offers physical, mental, and spiritual strategies for Calming the nervous system; activities designed to help your child Originate a creative plan to relieve anxiety; approaches to help you child Persist in the face of obstacles and failures; and effective ways for you and your child to Evaluate and refine your plan.
Go Away, Mr Worrythoughts!
Nicky Johnson. Nicky’s Art: 2008
Bayden is an intelligent, confident and courageous boy. Yet he is often overwhelmed by his worry thoughts. His anxiety makes his life quite unbearable at times. See how Bayden discovers his superpowers, takes control and is able to live free and happy!
This simple story has been nicely written and illustrated to help and encourage children like Bayden to manage and overcome their anxiety!
Helping Your Child with OCD
A workbook for parents of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Helping your child with OCD, written by Lee Fitzgibbons, a psychologist specializing in the treatment of OCD in children and adolescents, and Cherry Pedrick, co-author of The OCD Workbook, offers parents personalized strategies they can use to help their child break free from OCD. With this thorough, step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to: recognize your child’s specific OCD symptoms, understand causes of and treatment options for OCD, and teach your child the tools and techniques they need to deal with their OCD behaviour. You’ll learn invaluable treatment methods any child can use to help facilitate recovery, such as how to “boss back their OCD,” use positive self-talk, and many other effective ways of dealing with their disorder. Most importantly, you’ll learn what you can do to promote and support your child’s progress in therapy. Chock-full of fill-ins, assessments, and progress charts, the book’s unique workbook format will encourage you to get, and stay, involved with your child’s recovery.
Mr. Worry: A Story about OCD
Holly L. Niner. Albert Whitman and Company: 2004
How do you explain obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to children? This book holds the answer. Kevin suffers from OCD and constantly worries about everything! He asks millions of questions at school and home even when he already knows the answers. His parents realize that Kevin needs to talk with a therapist who can help him learn to handle his problem. The therapist, Dr. Fraser, encourages Kevin to send all of his problems to Mr. Worry. With medication and counseling, Kevin learns how to handle life with OCD. This is a great book to help children understand OCD!
When Lizzy Was Afraid of Trying New Things
Inger Maier, Illustrated by Jennifer Candon. Magination: 2005
Fuzzy the Little Sheep is a series of gently empowering books for young children who are coping with various fears, including fear of failure, shyness, separation anxiety, fears about being different, and fears related to loud noises. The author and the illustrator are a mother-daughter team with expertise in the psychological, developmental, and educational issues surrounding children.
Helping Your Child with Selective Mutism: Practical Steps to Overcome a Fear of Speaking.
Angela McHolm, Charles Cunningham, Melanie Vanier. New Harbinger Publications: 2005
Often referred to as an anxiety-based condition, selective mutism is a condition that causes children not to speak in certain situations. It affects about 2 percent of kids. The signs usually show up before the age of five, but you might not be able to fully recognise the condition until your child starts school. Although each child’s behaviour is different, most kids with selective mutism are comfortable speaking at home but don’t talk freely at school or in groups with other children. When you ask him or her to speak in an uncomfortable situation, a child with selective mutism will often look down, blush, or do something else to avoid engagement with other people.
If you think your child might be experiencing selective mutism, this book can help. It offers an overview of this condition and advice for finding and managing treatment. It also explains steps you can take to encourage your child to speak comfortably in front of others. All of the book’s strategies employ a gradual, ‘stepladder’ approach. The techniques greatly encourage the child to speak more in social situations, while at the same time, helping him or her to feel safe and comfortable.
Helping Your Child Overcome Separation Anxiety or School Refusal: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents
Andrew Eisen & Linda Engler. New Harbinger Publications, 2006
Does your child cling to you whenever you try to leave? Does he or she react strongly to the thought of being alone? Psychologists call this kind of behaviour separation anxiety, and it’s usually a part of your child’s developmental process – one that they outgrow. Sometimes, though, extreme or persistent kinds of separation anxiety can make life difficult for both you and your child. In some cases, separation anxiety issues can lead a child to be reluctant to get ready for school or, worse, to simply refuse to go at all. This behaviour, called school refusal, comes with its own set of challenges. This book shows you how to identify when your child’s separation anxiety or school refusal is more than just a phase and offers effective tools that you can use to manage your child’s anxiety. Real-life stories about other children facing these challenges will help you keep your situation in perspective and remember that, with patience and persistence, your child will overcome his or her anxiety.
After reading this book, you will be able to:
- Identify your child’s unique safety needs.
- Empower him or her with simple & effective coping skills
- Guide your child to better sleep, more comfortable alone time & regular school attendance.
- Monitor your progress & tap additional resources as you need them.
Autism / Asperger's Syndrome
Parenting a child with Asperger syndrome: 200 Tips and Strategies
Brenda Boyd
For parents of children with Asperger Syndrome ordinary parenting just doesn’t always do it – AS kids need a different approach. Brenda is mother to thirteen-year-old Kenneth, author of Asperger Syndrome, the Universe and Everything, and since his diagnosis at the age of eight she has gathered together the parenting ideas and tips that have had a positive effect on Kenneth’s life. Brenda discusses parents’ reaction to their child’s AS and gives advice on how better to understand ‘Planet Asperger’. This book helps parents to respond positively to the challenge of AS and find the ‘treasure’ in their child’s way of being.
All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome.
Kathy Hoopmann. Jessica Kingsley: 2006.
Touching, humorous and insightful, this book evokes the joy and challenges of raising a child who is different. It leaves the reader with a sense of the dignity, individuality and potential of people with Asperger Syndrome.
A Mind Apart: Understanding Children With Autism and Asperger Syndrome
Peter Szatmari. Guilford Press: 2004
How do you know if your child is happy or sad, tired or hungry, when all he wants to talk about is wasps - or the color of subway train doors? What can you do to reassure a nine-year-old who asks questions about death hundreds of times in a day? And how can you build a nurturing relationship when your little girl hates to be touched?
Questions like these make parenting a child with autism or Asperger syndrom (AS) a journey through uncharted terrain. That's why understanding how kids with these disorders actually think and feel - and the striking ways in which their minds work differently from those of typical children - is so important. Through moving stories of children he has worked with, Dr. Peter Szarmari helps you see the world through your child's eyes. Revealed is what lies behind the intense preoccupations, communication problems, and seeming lack of affection that often accompany autism and AS, and what your child's mystifying behavior might really be trying to tell you. This compassionate book shows how gaining a better sense of your child's experience can deepen the bonds that support learning and growth - and help you lead the way toward a happier future.
Friendships: The Aspie Way
Wendy Lawson. Jessica Kingsley: 2006
People with Aspergers’s Syndrome have difficulty with interpersonal relationships, yet are known to be loyal and dependable friends.
Wendy Lawson felt she had a knack for upsetting people and was surprised to be told that she “did friendship rather well”. In her frank and thoughtful analysis of what makes and breaks friendship, she explores what is means to have friends or to be a friend - even a friend to oneself; what happens when times are tough and friends are scarce; whether one can be a “good friend” without effort; and what other kinds of friendships there are, whether imaginary, animal or inanimate. These ideas are accompanied by practical examples, poetry and stories.
Insightful and relevant to people both on and off the autism spectrum, Friendships: The Aspie Way is a fresh approach to a universal issue in human relationships.
Behaviour Management
The Complete Audio Program 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2 -12
Thomas W. Phelan.
Kids are just kids! In addition to being delightful, charming and affectionate, children can also present their adult caretakers with a steady diet of difficult behaviour: whining, arguing, teasing, fighting, yelling, tantrums and pouting. For this reason, Dr. Thomas W. Phelan designed the 1-2-3 Magic program to bring practical, easy-to-use discipline techniques to families and educators.c
With 1-2-3 Magic Managing Difficult Behavior in children 2-12 you will learn:
- How to get your kids to stop obnoxious behaviour
- How to avoid the talk-Persuade-Argue-Yell-Hit! Syndrome
- How to maintain control in your classroom and have more time for instruction
- How to deal with The Six Kinds of Testing and Manipulation
- How to handle misbehaviour in public
- How to exercise self-control and be an effective disciplinarian at the same time.
More 1-2-3 Magic: Encouraging Good Behavior, Independence and Self Esteem - covers:
- 3 parental qualities that foster competence in kids
- How to encourage and respect your child’s growing independence
- 10 strategies for building self-esteem
- Up and out in the morning
- How to get your child to pick up after themselves
- Making mealtimes more enjoyable
- Family Meetings
- Going to bed
No More Meltdowns: Positive strategies for managing and preventing out-of-control behaviour
Jed Baker
It could happen at the grocery store, at a restaurant, at school, at home, meltdowns are stressful for both child and adult, but Dr. Baker can help!
Author of the award-winning Social skills Picture Book series, Dr. Jed Baker offers parents and teachers strategies for preventing and managing meltdowns. His 20+ years of experience working with children on the autism spectrum, combined with his personal experiences raising his own children, have yielded time-tested strategies, and results!
Dr. Baker offers an easy-to-follow, 4-step model that will improve your everyday relationships with the children in your life:
Managing your own emotions by adjusting your expectations
Learning strategies to calm a meltdown in the moment
Understanding why a meltdown occurs
Creating plans to prevent future meltdowns
No More Misbehavin': 38 Difficult Behaviors and How to Stop Them
Michele Borba. Jossey-Bass: 2003
Anger, anxiety, biting, bossiness, bullied, bullying, chore wars, cynicism, defiance, doesn't listen, fighting, giving up easily, hitting, homework battles, hooked on rewards, impulsivity, intolerance, lack of friends, lying and cheating, materialistic, meanness, negative peer pressure, overperfectionism, poor sportsmanship, put-downs, rudeness, selfishness, short attention span, shyness, sibling battles, stealing, swearing, talking back, tattling, teased, temper tantrums, whining, yelling - the top 38 bad behaviours and how to change them, step-by-step, are confronted and solved in this enormously useful, simple-to-use book.
Don't Give Me That Attitude!24 Rude, Selfish, Insensitive Things Kids Do and How to Stop Them
Michele Borba. Jossey-Bass: 2004
- Does your kid never take no for an answer and demand things go his way?
- Do her theatrics leave you drained at the end of the day?
- Are you resorting to bribes and threats to get your kid to do chores?
- Does he cheat, complain, or blame others for his problems?
- Do you feel you're running a hotel instead of a home?
- Are you starting to feel like your child's personal ATM machine?
What happened? You thought you were doing the best for your child and didn't set out to raise a selfish, insensitive, spoiled kid. In her newest book, Don't Give Me That Attitude! parenting expert Michele Borba offers you an effective, practical, and hands-on approach to help you work with your child to fix that very annoying but widespread youthful characteristic, attitude. If you have a child who is arrogant, bad-mannered, bad-tempered, a cheat, cruel, demanding, domineering, fresh, greedy, impatient, insensitive, irresponsible, jealous, judgmental, lazy, manipulative, narrow-minded, noncompliant, pessimistic, a poor loser, selfish, uncooperative, ungrateful, or unhelpful, this is the book for you.
THE DISCIPLINE BOOK: Everything you need to know to have a better-behaved child – from birth to age ten.
William Sears & Martha Sears Little Brown: 1995
From the best selling authors of the THE BABY BOOK and THE BIRTH BOOK comes THE DISCIPLINE BOOK, the definitive guide to raising happy, well adjusted, well–behaved children. Seasoned parents of eight, Bill and Martha Sears draw on personal experience and their professional knowledge as childcare experts to provide an authoritative approach to a broad range of disciplinary issues and practices.
With a focus on preventing behaviour problems as well as managing them when they arise, the Searses offer clear and practical advice on everything parents need to know about disciplining young children. Believing that discipline starts at birth, the Searses discuss baby discipline, disciplining the toddler, mother-father roles in modern parenting, saying no, self-esteem as the foundation of good behaviour, helping a child to express feelings, the constructive use of anger, good nutrition for good behaviour, and sleep discipline.
On handling problem behaviour, the Searses cover sibling rivalry, spanking and alternatives to spanking, breaking annoying habits, and eliminating bothersome behaviours like whining and talking back. The Searses strongly advocate teaching children values like apologizing and sharing, and explain how to deal with such issues as lying, stealing and cheating. In addition, the Searses address building healthy sexuality and discipline in special situations such as after divorce and in the single –parent household.
Child Development
Ages and Stages: A Parent’s Guide to Normal Childhood Development
Charles Schaefer & Theresa DiGeronimo. Wiley: 2000
A comprehensive parent’s guide to your child’s psychological development from birth through age 10.
Written in an engaging, practical style, Ages and Stages, offers you the benefits of the most current research on child development, featuring helpful tips and techniques to foster your child’s maturation. Charles Schaefer and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo tell you what behaviours you can expect as your child grows and how you can help him or her to advance to the next level of development. They include numerous examples, stories and activities you can use immediately to positively influence your child’s development.
The book’s structure (divided into four stages of child development – birth to 18 months, 18 months to 36 months, 36 months to age six and six to ten years) allows you tomonitor your child’s progress, identify the reasons for psychological differences in siblings, and even determine how your parenting strategies should change as your child grows.
He’ll Be OK: Growing Gorgeous Boys into Good Men
Celia LashlieHarper-Collins: 2007
Adolescent boys – they seem to disappear into another world where they barely communicate, and where fast cars, alcohol and drugs are constant temptations. Will they survive to become good men? How can parents and schools understand them and help them through this difficult and dangerous time?
Celia Lashlie has some of the answers. After years of working in the prison service she knows what can happen when boys make the wrong choices. She also knows what it’s like to be a parent – she raised a son on her own and feared for his survival. In this funny, honest, no-nonsense book, researcher and social commentator Celia Lashlie reveals what goes on inside the world of boys, and that it is an entirely different world from that of girls. With clarity and insight she offers parents – especially mothers – practical and reassuring advice on raising their boys to become good, loving, articulate men.
The Puberty Book: A Guide for Children and Teenagers
Wendy Darvill & Kelsey Powell. Hachette: 2007
The Puberty Book gives children and teenagers accurate and up-to-date information about themselves, their bodies and growing up. In simple, straightforward language Wendy Darvill and Kelsey Powell discuss the changes that happen at puberty, sex and sexuality, health and looking after yourself, relationships, pregnancy and birth. The authors have been actively involved in sexuality education in primary and secondary schools and with community organisations for many years. Kelsey Powell works for Family Planning Queensland. This book is based on thousands of questions children and teenagers ask every year.
What every parent needs to know: The remarkable effects of love, nurture and play on your child’s development
Margot Sunderland. Dorling Kindersley: 2006
Passionate but objective - the first practical parenting book to give you the facts, not the fiction, on the best way to bring up your child.
DISCOVER THE CHEMISTRY OF LOVE between you and you child ….how touch, laughter and play stimulate hormones that boost the capacity to love life
FIND OUT THE TRUTH about childcare strategies from research into how a baby’s brain is moulded by experience
LEARN HOW TO RESPOND to temper tantrums and tears and ensure a good night’s sleep for you and your baby.
Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change it
Michael Grose. Random House: 2003
As any real estate agent will tell you there are three factors in life worth considering – position, position and position. This ground-breaking book reveals how birth order is also a vital factor in determining our character and the life we lead. Did you know that first-borns are more achievement oriented and responsible than those born after them? That middle children are most likely to buck the family trend? That later-borns are more gregarious and easygoing than their older siblings? Or that those born last are often babied, affectionate and uncomplicated? Are you nodding as you read this – or outraged by such generalisations? Birth order will also explain why you react the way you do.
Your Child's Emotional Needs: What They Are and How to Meet Them
Dr Vicky Flory.Finch: 2005
For today’s parents there is no shortage of advice about how to deal with their child’s difficult behaviour. But children’s emotional needs are rarely discussed. Even though parents know that emotions matter, most would struggle to name their child’s key emotional needs. In this groundbreaking book, Dr Vicky Flory explores the emotional needs of children from birth to age 12, explaining what all children need in terms of a secure attachment to a parent, as well as detailing the specific needs at particular stages in a child’s development. She also discusses common emotional disorders and difficulties such as depression and anxiety. Drawing extensively on the latest research, Dr. Flory shows how children who have a secure parental attachment are far better equipped to enjoy healthy, connected relationships throughout their life than children who do not.
Her message is profound and simple: once you understand and meet children’s emotional needs, you can help set them up for a happy life. In this straightforward book she shows parents how.
Emotional Milestones: From birth to adulthood – a psychodynamic approach
Ruth Schmidt-Neven.ACER: 1996
Emotional Milestones offers parents, care-givers and teachers a conceptual framework for working together to understand and facilitate child and family development. This framework is known as the ‘psychodynamic approach’. The psychodynamic approach combines theoretical understanding and practical observation to create a new way of understanding human behaviour which can influence the way we organise services and facilities for children and parents. This is a thought-provoking book which offers an exciting new model for the type of parents and carers we can become.
Domestic Violence
Children Who See Too Much: Lessons from the Child Witness to Violence Project
Betsy McAlister Groves.Beacon Press: 2002
For the last ten years Betsy Groves has been working with children traumatised by witnessing violence. In this book she shows how children understand, respond to, and are affected by violence, especially domestic violence. Groves makes the powerful case that traumatic events carried out by family members carry the most severe psychological risks for very young children. She uses clinical case studies to show that being young does not protect against the lasting effects of witnessing violence, and she offers ways adults can help.
Friendship / Social Skills
Helping Your Socially Vulnerable Child
Andrew R. Eisen & Linda B. Engler
In social situations, certain children are more likely than others to be subject to emotional and physical harm by more aggressive children. Shyness, social anxiety, or tendency to be withdrawn may underlie this social vulnerability, as may awkwardness in social situations or an inclination to be impulsive or explosive. If your child struggles with any of these problems, there is much you can do to help him or her develop more effective social skills and learn to fit in better with peers.
In this book, the husband and wife team of Eisen and Engler provide you with a clinically proven set of coping tools and social-skill strategies you can tailor to your child’s unique social and emotional needs. Use them to promote confidence, independence, and social ease in your child, whether in the classroom, on the playground, or at play in his or her peer group. As you help your child manage his or her emotions, you‘ll lay the groundwork for a more harmonious family life, better school adjustment, and ultimately, social success.
Nurturing the Shy Child: Practical Help for Raising Confident and Socially Skilled Kids and Teens
Barbara Markaway & Gregory Markaway. Thomas Dunne Books: 2005
- Does your child sit on the sidelines, often avoiding group activities?
- Does your child feel nervous when called on by the teacher, giving a report in class, or reading aloud?
- Does your child complain of ‘butterflies’ in the stomach, dizziness, shaky hands or blushing?
- Do you wish you knew how to help your child break out of his or her shell?
With the right kind of care and attention, every child has the chance to overcome his or her shyness. Nurturing the shy child provides parents, teachers, guidance counsellors, and other concerned adults with the latest information and practical tools that they need to help shy and socially anxious kids. This book covers the entire shy spectrum – from shyness in only certain situations to social anxiety disorder – and provides proven methods adults can use to ease the child’s discomfort, tailored to specific ages and levels of anxiety.
Unlike other books on shyness, this book also offers much-needed information on problems that can go along with shyness and social anxiety, including depression, school anxiety, separation anxiety, excessive worry, selective mutism, and more. Written in a sensible and reassuring tone, Nurturing the Shy Child goes a long way toward preventing needless suffering in children and offers their parents some long-overdue hope.
Social Savvy: Help Your Child Fit in with Others
Lindy Petersen.Acer Press: 2002
How do you react when your child has a tantrum in the supermarket? When your children argue, do you intervene? Do you resist the urge to fight their battles for them?
Social Savvy is about:
- helping your child to make friends and fit in socially
- improving your own relationship with your child
- dealing effectively with your child's misbehaviour
This is a 'how-to' book for all adults caring for children, who want a more positive family and social life.
By following Lindy Petersen's guidelines, you will learn how to better manage situations and avoid reacting impulsively to your child's behaviour. Learn what to say to your child and teach your child positive social skills to adopt with others.
Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me: The Top 25 Friendship Problems and How to Solve Them
Michelle Borba.Wiley: 2005
- Do you wish your kid had more friends or could keep the ones she has?
- Is teasing, gossiping, bullying, or cyber-bullying a problem?
- Is she often left out or rejected by other kids?
- Does he just follow the crowd? Are you concerned about his friends?
- Does she complain that she’s unpopular or that nobody likes her?
- Are you at a loss for how to help your child handle those play dates, sleepovers, being shy, too sensitive, too competitive, or having a bad reputation?
Look no further. The resource you need to solve these problems and boost your child’s social competence is in your hands Based on a survey of five thousand teachers and parents, Nobody Likes Me shows how to teach your child the 25 most essential friendship-building skills kids need to find, make, and keep friends, as well as survive that social pressure from peers.
Giftedness
Raising Gifted Kids: Everything You Need to Know to Help Your Exceptional Child Thrive
Barbara Klein.Amacom: 2007
Extremely bright children are many things – quick, curious, sensitive, and introspective, to name a few. Being the parent of a gifted child can be a uniquely rewarding experience… but it can also be a daunting challenge, packed with trials and tribulations you may not see coming. Raising Gifted Kids is a powerful yet accessible resource that shows you how to:
- Help develop your child’s potential and self-esteem without applying pressure
- Plan your child’s education
- Work optimally with schools and teachers
- Solve family conflicts over parenting issues
- Avoid the dangers of living vicariously through your child’s accomplishments and much more!
Filled with proven solutions and helpful advice, Raising Gifted Kids is a practical and upbeat book that will help you make the best choices for your son’s or daughter’s growth and happiness.
Relationships
Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence.
Rosalind Wiseman. Piatkus: 2002
Your daughter’s friendships are the key to surviving adolescence but also the biggest threat to her happiness. In this internationally bestselling book Rosalind Wiseman cracks the ‘girl code’. She has spent a decade listening to girls talk about the powerful impact that cliques have on their clothes, interacting with boys and how they feel about themselves. Here, quoting dozens of teenage girls, she reveals her findings and teaches parents how to understand the secret world of cliques. She explains how to infiltrate ‘Girl World’ to analyse teasing and gossip; boys and sex; alcohol and drugs and more; so you can help your daughter to take control of her situation. Packed with examples and tips, this is an invaluable guide for parents to empower their daughters and themselves.
Girl Fighting: Betayal and Fighting among Girls
Lyn Mikel Brown. New York University Press: 2003
In this book, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown explores the way our culture nurtures and reinforces competition, cliques, backstabbing, and general meanness among girls. She traces girls' development from childhood into young adulthood, providing the theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviews with over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls to distrusting and competitive young women.
Brown's pioneering analysis is capped by a concluding chapter that offers practical strategies to combat girlfighting and support coalitions among girls. By allowing girls' voices to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.
Greif & Loss
Children's Grief: A Guide for Parents
Pam Heaney. Longacre Press, 2004
How do we talk to children about loss? Children experience grief for many reasons: loss of a loved one, a separation or divorce, change of school or death of a pet. We can't protect them from these traumas. Yet we can help children to fully understand and cope.
This book is a practical, straightforward guide to help adults talk to children about loss, grief, and death. It deals with the responses of all age groups - from birth to teens. Its respectful advice explains children's needs, and will help readers support children when they are at their most vulnerable.
Parenting a child with Asperger syndrome: 200 Tips and Strategies
Brenda Boyd
For parents of children with Asperger Syndrome ordinary parenting just doesn’t always do it – AS kids need a different approach. Brenda is mother to thirteen-year-old Kenneth, author of Asperger Syndrome, the Universe and Everything, and since his diagnosis at the age of eight she has gathered together the parenting ideas and tips that have had a positive effect on Kenneth’s life. Brenda discusses parents’ reaction to their child’s AS and gives advice on how better to understand ‘Planet Asperger’. This book helps parents to respond positively to the challenge of AS and find the ‘treasure’ in their child’s way of being.
Parenting
The Co-Parenting SURVIVAL GUIDE: Letting Go of Conflict after a Difficult Divorce
Elizabeth S. Thayer & Jeffrey Zimmerman.
Divorced and single! You may be single, but you are not a single parent. You are a co-parent.
You may be winning the battle in court, but losing the war at home, saddened at the wounds your children bear as a result of this conflict. But because you are willing to do anything to help your children thrive, you can learn to build a parenting partnership with your former mate in spite of the history between you.
The Co-Parenting Survival Guide shows you how to avoid the hot spots and the common traps of hostility, inflexibility, and constant squabbling, and develop skills to sustain a co–operating partnership based on love and concern for your children, so they can best benefit from two parents living separately but working together.
Children First: What we must do – and are not doing – for our children today
Penelope Leach: Penguin: 1994
Amid moral panic about ‘the breakdown of the family’ and juvenile crime, leading childcare expert, Penelope Leach, author of BABY AND CHILD, indicts Western societies for failing children and blaming parents.
Today’s parents face:
- changing family structures and gender roles
- conflicting demands between caring for children and working for money
- lack of economic support and social recognition
As a result many children are not getting:
- optimal care in infancy
- the socialisation that leads via self-esteem to self-discipline
- developmentally appropriate pre-school and later education
- a sense of apprenticeship to the adult world they will inherit
Idolising Children
Daniel Donahoo.University of New South Wales Press: 2007
Obsessed with our own youth and wanting perfect, genius children who live in a world of designer clothes and toys, it’s time for us to find new ways of parenting and a new kind of childhood. With humour, insight and emotion, Daniel Donahoo reflects on the place of children in our society by looking at everything from fertility rates, childcare, the role of the media and the day-to-day joys and challenges of being a parent. Donahoo argues that idolising children is a form of worship that adversely affects our children’s development in their early years, and creates citizens who no longer understand their roles and responsibilities. It makes parents feel unnecessarily guilty and anxious. Without blame or finger-pointing, Idolising Children examines how we arrived here and looks at what needs to change so that communities as a whole are responsible for raising children.
Ourselves as Mothers: The universal experience of motherhood.
Sheila Kitzinger. Bantam: 1992
“To be a mother is to take on one of the most emotionally and intellectually demanding, exasperating, strenuous, anxiety-arousing and deeply satisfying tasks that any human being can undertake.” So says Sheila Kitzinger in this exciting, breakthrough book in which she explores those universal experiences, birth and motherhood. She writes with understanding of the problems facing mothers in the West today, about the pain of infertility, the struggles of working mothers, the myth of the “new man” and the underrating of housework, and ways in which woman try to juggle with their identities as mothers and as achievers in a man’s world.
Sheila Kitzinger looks closely at many aspects of motherhood, from preparing for pregnancy to the ritualization of hospital birth, from the mystique surrounding the bonds forged between mother and child to the changes in behaviour expected of women when they become mothers, and describes how concepts of motherhood and ritual surrounding it differ between cultures. Citing examples from India to Jamaica, South Africa to Communist China, she highlights the role of women in different cultures and the varying ways in which images of motherhood are socially constructed.
Powerfully and sensitively written, OURSELVES AS MOTHERS is the most comprehensive and wide ranging study of its kind, and an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of women and society. It is a book that reveals a deep awareness of women’s shared experiences across the world.
The Princess Bitchface Syndrome: Surviving Adolescent Girls
Michael Carr-Gregg.Penguin: 2006
In this hard-hitting book, Michael Carr-Gregg focuses on the special trials of raising adolescent girls today: what to do when your previously quiet, loving daughter becomes a restless, rebellious stranger who behaves like a responsible adult one day and a vampish brat the next. Part of the problem is that girls are becoming sexualised earlier, and their physical development is shooting ahead of their cognitive capacities. By the time they turn 13 they look like they’re ready for anything – but they’re not. Yet, argues Carr-Gregg, many parents are surrendering their authority and allowing their daughters to be fast-tracked into pseudo-adulthood. We appear to be losing it when it comes to parenting our girls and it’s time to grab back the reins.
Parenting after Separation: Making the Most of Family Changes
Jill Burnett.Finch: 2002
A guide to parenting successfully from two households. In this practical and sympathetic book, Jill Burrett shows how parents - despite the disappointment of separating - can continue their commitment to the children to ensure they thrive.
In Parenting after Separation, the author explains how to:
- Maintain a positive approach to a parent's most important job - caring for your children
- Consider your ex-partner's point of view, whether you sympathise with it or not
- Recognise the importance of a father's contribution to children's lives, and so co-parent on an equal basis
- Do the best for your children, whether they're with you most of the time or visit you regularly
- Successfully blend families and assume new and unexpected roles, such as stepmum or stepdad
- Effectively manage single-parent families whether you are a mum or a dad
- Get on with your life in a positive way, so you can grow and change.
Jill shares her extensive experience with families undergoing change to help parents get the very best for their children.
Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive
Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell. Jeremy P Tarcher: 2003
A child psychiatrist and an early childhood expert reveal that the first step in raising happy and healthy children is to fully understand and learn from your own childhood experiences.
How many parents have found themselves thinking: I can't believe I just said to my child the very thing my parents used to say to me! Am I just destined to repeat the mistakes of my parents? In Parenting from the Inside Out, child psychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel and early childhood expert Mary Hartzell explore the extent to which our childhood experiences shape the way that we parent. Drawing on stunning new findings in neurobiology and attachment research, they explain how interpersonal relationships directly affect the development of the brain, and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories that will help them raise compassionate and resilient children.
The Indigo Children
Michael Carr-Gregg.Penguin: 2006
Is your child misunderstood?
Does your child seem different?
Is your child uniquely gifted?
You may have an Indigo Child. Indigo children display particular character traits, qualities and ways of behaviour that single them out from the generations that preceded them. Indigo children are truly special, yet often misunderstood. Their singularly unique psychological attributes call for parents and teachers to care for them in a very different way. They need careful nurturing to ensure they avoid frustration and achieve balance and harmony in their lives.
Chicken Soup for the Parent’s Soul: Stories of Loving, Learning and Parenting
Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Kimberly Kirberger, Raymond Aaron.Scholastic: 2001
Parents everywhere know the joys and sorrows, challenges and triumphs of raising a family. This special collection of inspirational stories has been created for you, the parents of this world. Whether you are expecting your first baby, busy raising a toddler, watching your teen grow into adulthood or have arrived at the grandparenting years, these wonderful stories will remind you that parenting is possibly the most worthwhile and fulfilling role of your life.
You Can Do It For Parents: How to Boost Your Child’s Achievement in School
Michael Bernard.Wilkinson Books: 1997.
All children are born to achieve – yet far too many of our children are underachieving in school. Now Dr. Michael E. Bernard, the creator of You Can Do It! Education, a program that has already helped thousands of kids, offers parents proven and effective ways to help their children to develop their talents and fulfil their potential. A comprehensive guide with cartoons that make learning easy, You Can Do It shows you:
- How to recognise the telltale signs of underachievement whether or not your child is getting good grades.
- What steps to take if your child is falling behind in school.
- How to evaluate your own parenting style to see if it encourages – or discourages your child.
- The five best parenting practices for achievement.
- How to manage your own stress concerning your child’s performance at school.
- How to help your child develop a healthy mindset towards achievement.
PLUS hundreds of specific tips for getting your child to resist peer pressure, set and achieve goals, improve test performance, develop self-confidence, persist with boring and difficult work, get organised and manage time, achieve better grades, and much more!
The Five Love languages of Children
Gary Chapman, Ph.D and Ross Campbell, M.D
Want to know the secret to making sure your child feels loved?
Kids desperately need to know how much you love them. But if you don’t know their special “love languages,” you might as well be speaking gibberish. Every child (like every adult) expresses and receives love best through one of five communication styles. Find out which one of these your child speaks: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, physical touch. If you love language is different from your children’s, you’d better learn to translate – fast. Or you could miss your chance to meet their deepest emotional needs. Discover how to express unconditional feelings of respect, affection and commitment that will resonate in their souls – and inspire them for the rest of their lives.
Resilience
Helping Children with Complex Needs Bounce Back: Resilient Therapy for Parents and Professionals
Kim Aumann and Angie Hart.
Resilient Therapy is an innovative way of strengthening children with complex needs. This is a tried-and-tested handbook for parents to read from cover to cover, or dip in and out of as needed. Accessible and fun, Helping Children with Complex Needs Bounce Back includes exercises and worksheets, as well as breaking down the principles of the latest research, making them easy to apply to everyday situations. This ‘magic box’ of ideas and remedies is perfect for parents and carers, friends and families of children with disabilities, special educational needs, and mental or physical health needs, as well as professionals working with these children.
Dealing with Disappointment: Helping kids cope when things don’t go their way.
Elizabeth Crary. Parenting Press: 2003
Things don’t go our way all the time - when we’re 5, 15, or all grown up. That’s why it is so important that we learn, early on, how to handle the dozens of disappointments we all experience daily. Dealing with disappointment offers the tools and techniques you need to help children cope, whether you are dealing with toddler tantrums or middle-school meltdowns.
This practical guide:
- Tells what you can do when your children are upset.
- Explains why acknowledging children’s feelings is not enough and what else they need.
- Spells out the dangers of trying to make (or keep) children happy.
- Shows how to teach children self-calming and problem-solving strategies with step-by-step guides and games.
- Teaches you skills to keep your cool when kids lose theirs.
Raising Real People: Creating a Resilient Family
Andrew Fuller.Acer Press: 2002
The Australian bestseller that explores the delights, frustrations and dilemmas facing parents of adolescents. From the serious (relationships, depression, youth suicide) to the not-so-serious (pocket money, homework, parties), author and clinical psychologist Andrew Fuller offers practical solutions to common problems drawn from parents, their children and his own experience as a family therapist.
Full of insight, humour and good advice, this revised edition includes a new chapter on the 'Click and Go' generation. Raising Real People is a must-have guide for all parents of teenagers.
Schooling
Is Your Child Ready for School? A Guide for Parents
Dr Ivan Beale & Dr Sandra Heriot. ACER Press: 2004
Is Your Child Ready for School? shows parents how to prepare their child for school and how to nourish curiosity so that learning is a positive and pleasurable experience. It will help parents understand how their child learns and what they can do to make learning happen as easily and effectively as possible, regardless of the child's natural strengths or weaknesses.
Is Your Child Ready for School? is based on sound research and contains practical examples, strategies and activities that parents can use to help their child in the following areas:
- Different types of learning
- Motivation
- Play
- Social competence
- Concentration
- Memory
- Motor skills
- Making hard tasks easy
- Coping with the transition from home to school
The authors have extensive experience in working with parents and children and have demonstrated that an early, positive, encouraging approach actually helps to reduce the chance of learning problems.
Thriving at School: A Practical Guide to Help Your Child Enjoy the Crucial School Years. (2nd Edition)
John Irvine and John Stewart. Finch: 2008
Thriving at School aims to help children flourish in the crucial early year school years and beyond. This easy-to-read practical guide is designed to help parents develop their children’s attitudes, values and good habits and so help them become happy and effective learners. Highly regarded authors Dr John Irvine and John Stewart consider ways to help a child succeed in the classroom, be stimulated to learn, deal with difficulties in the playground, and get on well with others at school and at home.
The authors write: ‘Current research shows that our children’s success in life will depend less on their “traditional” IQ and more on their emotional intelligence – their ability to form successful relationships, be more understanding of others and form a positive outlook on life. They will need the new Three Rs: the values of respect, responsibility and relationships. These values underpin every student’s capacity to thrive at school’.
The School-Savvy Parent: 365 Insider Tips to Help You Help Your Child. Rosemarie Clark,
Donna Hawkins and Beth Vachon. Free Spirit: 1999.
- Different types of learning
- How can I get my child and myself off to a good start in the new school year?
- How can I communicate effectively with teachers?
- When life is hectic, what can I do to keep my child on track in school?
- How can I make sure my child stays healthy and safe when I’m not there?
As a parent, you have many questions about your child’s school experience. This book has the answers.
Straight from the source – teachers themselves – these positive, practical tips make you a savvy supporter of your child’s education. The tips are clear, concise and quick: jump in anywhere to learn something useful. You’ll find tips on starting the school year, health and safety, latchkey issues, talking with teachers, volunteering at your child’s school, and much more. With this friendly book as your guide, you can make school easier and more rewarding for everyone – including y
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