Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid... to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The family environment in which your children are growing up is different from that in which you grew up. The decisions our parent...s made and the strategies they used were developed in a different context from what we face today, even if the "content" of the problem is the same. It is a mistake to think that our own experience as children and adolescents will give us all we need to help our children. The rules of the game have changed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A two-week-old infant cries an average of one and a half hours every day. This increases to approximately three hours per day when... the child is about six weeks old. By the time children are twelve weeks old, their daily crying has decreased dramatically and averages less than one hour. This same basic pattern of crying is present among children from a wide range of cultures throughout the world. It appears to be wired into the nervous system of our species.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Gaining a better understanding of how children's minds work at different ages will allow you to make more sense of their behaviors.... With this understanding come decreased stress and increased pleasure from being a parent. It lessens the frustrations that come from expecting things that a child simply cannot do or from incorrectly interpreting a child's behavior in adult terms.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Archaeologists have uncovered six-thousand-year-old clay tablets from southern Babylonia that describe in great detail how the adu...lts of that community found the younger generation to be insolent and disobedient.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Not all conflicts between siblings are good, of course. A child who is repeatedly humiliated or made to feel insignificant by a br...other or sister is learning little except humiliation and shame.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Far more critical to children than learning the details of intercourse at a young age is ... that they learn to think of themselve...s as worthy of the respect of others and capable of making their own decisions, for that self-concept will inoculate them against many forms of sexual exploitation when they become older.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Theories of child development and guidelines for parents are not cast in stone. They are constantly changing and adapting to new i...nformation and new pressures. There is no "right" way, just as there are no magic incantations that will always painlessly resolve a child's problems.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In some ways being a parent is like being an anthropologist who is studying a primitive and isolated tribe by living with them....... To understand the beauty of child development, we must shed some of our socialization as adults and learn how to communicate with children on their own terms, just as an anthropologist must learn how to communicate with that primitive tribe.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sometimes the children who are no problem to their parents should be looked at more closely. This is especially true if those chil...dren are extremely obedient and have few friends their own age. A good self-concept allows children to explore the world, risk engaging in conflict and failing. Children who play it safe by never disobeying or risking conflict may be telling you that they feel unqualified to face the world head-on.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »