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	• Picking Your Battles: Winning Strategies for Raising Well-Behaved Kids Bonnie Maslin St. Martin's Griffin, 2004 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Invaluable Resource

This book should be required reading for all parents. I only regret that it was not available to my own mother and father. With compassion and understanding, Bonnie Maslin has outlined simple principles that will save a parent's sanity, and simultaneously produce a healthy relationship between parent and child. I have passed this book on to many friends, with many thanks. Thank you, Dr. Maslin!

Good ideas, but average book

This book should be much, much shorter. I think there was no editing before printing; a good editor would thin out the spreading, messy tree of Bonnie Maslin's thoughts and make this a book that would be far more readable. The author keeps repeating same things over and over; I read three or four sentences and they were all saying the same with a bit different words. Yes, repetition is the mother of wisdom, but endless repetition is exhausting and creates confusion, not wisdom.
Exhausted is the reader, exhausted would be a child raised by Maslin's book. Talking and explaining ad nauseam is the core of author's strategy. You misbehaved? Tell me, what are the reasons behind it. We're gonna talk about our feelings. I have to lovingly explain to you I'm angry, how do I feel and why am I angry. Then we're gonna talk about the consequences and we're gonna plan a solution. I have to (lovingly) ground you for a week, because... yes, let me explain, why am I grounding you! And how do you feel about it? Do you have any ideas we could work into your punishment?
The pity is, there are good ideas in the book. If you take out the essential elements and wash away all the gunk, you have the fundamentals of a good raising strategy. The chapters about what do "ordinary" parents wrong and how can they avoid it are good; the chapter on developmental psychology (here called "kidology") and how does it affect behavior are useful.
So, I'm giving three stars, because this is worth reading (the babbling sequences can be jumped over), but not awesome.

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Bonnie Maslin's Picking Your Battles

I bought this book after reading the reviews and hoped and crossed fingers that this book would help me to get back to how I was before I became a mother or at least help me to be a good mother and not a nagging old witch that I have now become.

Well I'm glad I did! I have two boys, one nine and the other twelve...and after reading the book I wished I had the book before I even gave birth to either of them. There's lots of valuable information on raising kids and how to discipline them. It also helps us to identify what type of parent we are and how to rate the behavioral breach.. but I especially liked the part about looking at our children and seeing them as a "work in progress" and "person under construction"., so whatever we do and say just remember this and it actually helped me better to deal with them.

I had some trouble with my younger one, one morning (yup!just before going to school). He was moody, cranky and scolding me and everyone in the room about how we must have misplaced one of his workbooks.,etc, etc.... and I decided to try one of Bonnie Maslin's kidology ..and What she said "No matter how angry I get with you or how furious you get with me, we will always love each other. There is always love after anger." In my own words of course, but the intention and the feeling conveyed, and the hug I gave him, actually did calm him down.

What surprised me most was that he called me at work from school to say he had found the book and that he was sorry about what happened in the morning! Can you believe it a nine year old boy taking his break time to call me to apologize!!

There were many more incidents that happened with my children and Bonnie Maslin's words of wisdom came in really handy.(Mind you I got the book only three weeks ago)

Don't wait till you have children to read this book and get ideas on how to raise children, do it when you are expecting/planning them. It is an extremely useful tool for parents dealing with everday issues like misbehaviour and anger and even the more serious ones like lying. More importantly though to set reasonable expectations of our children whom we love so dearly.

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To My Readers:Join Me for Free Interactive Parenting Talks

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your generous words of praise for Picking Your Battles (PYB). While PYB is grounded in everything I know from my many years of clinical experience working as a psychologist in private practice as well as my knowledge of the field of child development, it is above all the product of thirty years of parenting; I am mother and stepmother to four reasonably well-behaved children. Because I know what it means to be on the front-line of parenting, PYB is a practical book written from the trenches, not the lofty heights of expertise. I feel sure that all of you who are also right down there with me on the front-line of parenting will find it useful in making your life with kids easier and more joyful enabling you get even better at the ever-challenging job of raising well-behaved kids.

All the Best,
Bonnie Maslin

PS I invite you to join my Nationwide Interactive Parenting Discussion Groups by way of a FREE conference call. For information on how you can participate in these innovative parenting sessions where you can hear me talk AND ask me questions, please go to my website: www.pickingyourbattles.com

PPS If you have found PYB useful, please recommend it to your friends. There is no better endorsement for me than yours, a fellow parent! Thank You.

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reviews: page 1, 2

How often as parents do we promise ourselves that we won't "sweat the small stuff" when it comes to our kids? And how often does our concern--or our tight schedules--make us do exactly that?

In a non-judgemental voice that speaks to parents everywhere, the author shows how to avoid "no-win" discipline styles and instead set limits, develop a child's sense of self-discipline, and use anger positively to survive the hassles and headaches of everyday life. With a unique and effective combination of authority and accessibility, Maslin gives parents both the big picture on understanding their child and step-by-step solutions to those inevitable battles they will face.

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