How parents can foster a positive self-image in their children, helping them to cope with the ego-damaging vicissitudes of childhood and adolescence, A good self-image, says Phillips (coauthor, Sexual Confidence, 1980), enhances the likelihood of success in school and adulthood. In infancy, it is promoted by love, smiles, cuddles, and other signs of encouragement. Verbally praising toddlers and older children for their accomplishments and attributes bolsters the growing ego. (Behavior therapist Phillips supplies specific language for parents, and parent-child dialogues based on her practice, for all situations covered in the book,) To reverse a poor self-image, parents must mend their overcritical disciplinarian ways and learn how to express empathy for the child's problems; mete out praise four or five times daily for accomplishments as minor as a smile or a correctly spelled work: and encourage the child to speak positively about his or her attributes. Also covered: how to advise a child who faces criticism; how to help a child handle malicious teasing or rejection by peers; how to reverse a poor body image. Lucidly written with the help of People magazine's Bernstein; filled with sensible, useful suggestions.