Insightful parenting tips for achieving understanding, empathy and healthy human development.
In this warm, wise and often witty book, debut author Hulton offers clearheaded insights and methods she’s learned while counseling exhausted, perplexed parents as a mental health counselor and psychoanalyst. This six-part handbook’s most valuable attributes are its lack of condescension and its nonauthoritarian mission “to teach all parents to trust empathy and in so doing to break out of Parent Fatigue Syndrome.” That syndrome, she writes, is caused by relying on “conventional wisdom”—the “spare the rod, spoil the child” tradition and trendy contemporary advice that stresses achievements and can make parents feel like failures. Concise, explicit information will enable readers to develop individualized practices. The author discusses children’s essential needs, developmental milestones (such as attachment and breaking away) and ideal school experiences (such as the individualistic Reggio Emilia approach). She also includes practical, fun therapy methods (such as sock puppets and sand trays), plus an index. “There really is no one way to parent,” claims Hulton, and she sprinkles generous references throughout to works by child development experts such as Haim Ginott, Robert Karen, T. Berry Brazelton, Penelope Leach and Maggie Scarf. Mindful of recent school shootings, she stresses the importance of raising compassionate global citizens and recognizing the societal danger of “empathy erosion.” Empathy, she says, doesn’t mean excusing or accepting bad behavior: “It is the reflection of another’s emotional experience so that they feel understood—understood well enough to feel that they are part of the world in which they live so that alienation does not become a slowly spreading cancer in their soul.”
A highly recommended work that shows that parenting can be a rewarding lifetime investment that pays great dividends not only to caregivers, but also to society.
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989841726
Page Count: 187
Publisher: Studio Owls Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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