Helpful, insightful, and filled with great advice, I Just Want My Kids To Be Happy! is a book today's parents must read.
While parents are more committed than ever to their children's happiness, kids today are more worried, more anxious, and more depressed--a fact the authors point out so well through the use of statistics and examples.
Why is this the case?
According to Cooper and Keitel, the "I just want my kids to be happy" mantra has led "well-intentioned mothers and fathers astray in their child-rearing practices, ultimately undermining the ability of young people to face the challenges of life with balance, resilience, and imagination."
By overemphasizing pleasure, promoting unrealistic expectations, fostering guilt and shame, encouraging too much self-focus, and telling a half-truth, we are leaving our children totally unprepared for a life that won't always be rosy and bright.
Cooper and Keitel show how this happiness creed leaves parents captive to their children's moods and feeling unnecessary guilt and shame, how it abdicates parental authority, how parents overprotect their children from adversity, and how it emphasizes feelings over actions. They also discuss three myths about happiness.
The only way for our children to be truly happy, according to the authors, is for parents to plant the seeds of authentic happiness and till the soil of authentic happiness.
How do we do this? Read the book!
If I could afford it, I would purchase a copy of this book for all expectant and new parents. It sheds light on how changes in the focus of what is important have created a society of children who aren't prepared for the realities of life.
I Just Want My Kids To Be Happy!: Why You Shouldn't Say It, Why You Shouldn't Think It, What You Should Embrace Instead shows parents in an easy and helpful way how to bring up children who are truly happy, not ones who experience short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term happiness.
I highly recommend this book to parents, grandparents, and caregivers everywhere!
Title: I Just Want My Kids To Be Happy!
Authors: Aaron Cooper, Ph.D. & Eric Keitel, M.Ed.
Publisher: Late August Press (an imprint of Ace Coupay Publishing)
ISBN-10: 0-9797926-0-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-9797926-0-1
U.S. Price: $15.95
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1 comment:
Fantastic review, Cheryl! Where was this book when my kids were little???
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