Honest and important book with great perspective

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	• Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads: Dealing with the Parents, Teachers, Coaches, and Counselors Who Can Make--or ... Rosalind Wiseman, Elizabeth Rapoport Crown, 2006 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent Book!

Every person interested in the ins and outs of parenting should take the time to read this stellar compilation of information on how certain parents are the true influencers of how your child will do in their social lives.

A Must-Read For Moms, Dads, Teachers, Principals

Your child is the only one in class not invited to a birthday party. Should you call the parents to try to wrangle an invitation?

You overhear some parents making rude comments about your daughter's outfit. Do you confront them?

Your child flunks a test that you know he studied for and should have aced. He said the teacher refused to discuss it. Do you step in?

Or maybe you're dreading back to school night. What should you wear? Will anyone talk to you? Should you even go?

Rosalind Wiseman tackles all of these questions and more in Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads, a follow-up to her bestselling Queen Bees & Wannabees.

The book starts with the premise that the same cliques that ruled our lives in school continue into adulthood. Maybe you're a Queen Bee type, who helps run the school but also steps on a lot of toes. Maybe you're a Sidekick, or a Desperate Wannabee.

Wiseman doesn't let men off the hook. She gives dads labels too, including Caveman Dad. When you're reading, you can't help but wonder where you fit in, just as you think about your friends and other parents.

The book isn't about labeling as much as understanding how our roles affect how we see situations, how we deal with problems and how other people see us.

Wiseman gives a lot of practical advice, from dealing with coaches, principals, teachers and even people of other religions and ethnic backgrounds. The book, which addresses topics such as college entrance exams and alcohol abuse, is clearly aimed at parents of older students. But all parents will benefit from the strategies and advice.

While the book is educational, it's also a fun and fast read with lots of juicy, real-life examples. She liberally uses transcribed comments from parents and adults discussing their personal stories. Some of them are so awful and entertaining that it's a guilty pleasure to read them.

The book's organization also works well. She has sample dialogs so the reader can see how important a script is when you're going to have a tricky conversation. Wiseman also includes boxed "landmines" that tell you specific comments to avoid, like threatening to sue the school before you've even said hello.

In a kind of supertitle, the cover of the book says: Dealing with The Parents, Teachers, Coaches, and Counselors Who can Make - Or Break - Your Child's Future.

Doesn't everyone want to learn how to accomplish that?

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Honest and important book with great perspective

I found Rosalind Wiseman's new book wonderful - not only because of the useful advice it provides, but also for her honest tone and great perspective. Another reviewer wrote that it was like listening to the advice of a friend who knows you well enough to speak unflinchingly. I couldn't agree more. The book is immensely readable and it feels as if Ms. Wiseman is pulling us aside and leveling with us - not in a condescending manner, but as a confidant and friend. She reminds us that "Perfect Parent World" doesn't exist and that we have to think carefully about when and how to intervene in our children's lives.

I was surprised to read the review from "MovedbyMusic" that suggested Ms. Wiseman deemed so many situations as making or breaking a childhood - I felt just the opposite. Ms. Wiseman writes often about the fact that children have to fight their own battles and also that disappointments are natural and help them grow. Even when parent intervention is called for, Ms. Wiseman suggests helping the child lead the charge (in talking to the administration, coach or teacher). And instead of intervening to mitigate the inevitable disappointments associated with growing up (such as not being selected for a team or school play), Ms. Wiseman advocates that parents recognize the lessons children gain from such incidents rather than trying to ease their way through every turn during their teen years.

When intervention is called for, Ms. Wiseman's book lays out a valuable step-by-step guide for working with your child to address grievances and how to escalate things when needed. Whether you ever encounter the same types of situations she describes, the techniques are useful ones that can be applied broadly.

I found the book to be an excellent and well needed wake-up call to parents (and, not coincidentally, useful for their kids as well).

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insightful, but a bit much

After my kid read and re-read the excellent Queen Bees and Wannabees on the topic of kids dealing with social issues, also by Rosalind Wiseman, she asked for this book. I pried it away after she was done, but it has taken me weeks to finish it.

There is much useful advice - dealing with college admissions, the social stratification of PTAs, the pitfalls of high school parties, for example, however it has left me vaguely irritated.

Wiseman nearly invariably argues for everyone to talk out problems in a neutral tone, suggesting massive and carefully planned intervention when problems arise, going up the ladder until one finds someone who will do the right thing. This is doubtless useful when major problems arise, but I have the different impression that many problems have no such solutions, and the further one digs into social systems, the more unfairness and spitefulness one will uncover to try to correct. Most problems of the kind described in the book are best recognized and taken as a lesson rather than a Don-Quixote-challenge to set the world right.

Perhaps it is the subject of grown-ups like myself that is the depressant. When the kids in Queen Bee and Wannabees misbehaved, they can be imagined to change with the right advice. When grown-ups behave poorly, there is often little hope of converting them to paragons by talking out the problem.

Still, on many topics Wiseman delivers advice to be heeded in a pinch, and this book may get a workout before my kid escapes the watchful eye of her parents.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3

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