An inviting, readable, and accessible manual for parents of kids of all ages.
A debut guide for parents focuses on talking with their children about a wide variety of subjects.
The core of Lambroschino’s frank and lucid book is disarmingly simple: The key to successful parenting is consistent, open communication with one’s children. As any parent can attest, this is far more challenging than it appears on the surface. Parents can find themselves lapsing into a predominantly disciplinary role. As the author writes, “Conversations may become a one-way torrent of terse demands from parent to child: clean up your room, finish your homework, put away that phone.” And kids go through many kinds of reticence themselves, whether born of juvenile confusion or adolescent resentment. In all stages and at all times, Lambroschino urges communication precepts that are often overlooked despite the fact that they’re plain and straightforward: Be respectful, refrain from ridicule, and take things seriously. These fundamentals acquire added urgency in the book's strongest sections, which deal with the challenges of parenting teens through the world of social media, peer pressure, alcohol, and even drugs. The natural urges of parents to be overprotective are examined for the potential harm they can do. The author deftly throws light on the possible rewards of parents’ extending greater trust to their teens. “If the child is not allowed to make mistakes while under the protection of his parents,” she writes, “he will have no experience in recognizing a mistake and recovering from it when he is in the world alone.” Lambroschino helpfully breaks up her book—which features stock photographs—into bulleted points, lists of essentials, and motivational quotes. But the manual’s most useful quality is its clear, nonjudgmental prose, smoothly talking parents through potential trouble spots and basic responsibilities in a way they should find invaluable. In addition, there’s a subtext of reliability throughout the guide that derives from the fact that the author interviewed many teenagers directly.
An inviting, readable, and accessible manual for parents of kids of all ages.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5043-6348-8
Page Count: 198
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.
Fremont (After Long Silence, 1999) continues—and alters—her story of how memories of the Holocaust affected her family.
At the age of 44, the author learned that her father had disowned her, declaring her “predeceased”—or dead in his eyes—in his will. It was his final insult: Her parents had stopped speaking to her after she’d published After Long Silence, which exposed them as Jewish Holocaust survivors who had posed as Catholics in Europe and America in order to hide multilayered secrets. Here, Fremont delves further into her tortured family dynamics and shows how the rift developed. One thread centers on her life after her harrowing childhood: her education at Wellesley and Boston University, the loss of her virginity to a college boyfriend before accepting her lesbianism, her stint with the Peace Corps in Lesotho, and her decades of work as a lawyer in Boston. Another strand involves her fraught relationship with her sister, Lara, and how their difficulties relate to their father, a doctor embittered after years in the Siberian gulag; and their mother, deeply enmeshed with her own sister, Zosia, who had married an Italian count and stayed in Rome to raise a child. Fremont tells these stories with novelistic flair, ending with a surprising theory about why her parents hid their Judaism. Yet she often appears insensitive to the serious problems she says Lara once faced, including suicidal depression. “The whole point of suicide, I thought, was to succeed at it,” she writes. “My sister’s completion rate was pathetic.” Key facts also differ from those in her earlier work. After Long Silence says, for example, that the author grew up “in a small city in the Midwest” while she writes here that she grew up in “upstate New York,” changes Fremont says she made for “consistency” in the new book but that muddy its narrative waters. The discrepancies may not bother readers seeking psychological insights rather than factual accuracy, but others will wonder if this book should have been labeled a fictionalized autobiography rather than a memoir.
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982113-60-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Solid, practical advice for women on how to properly nurture their sons.
How women can raise boys to become good men.
More than ever, women are under pressure to be "everything to everyone," writes Meeker (The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming Our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity, 2010, etc.), as "working women feel that they must perform equally well both in the office and in caring for their home, husband, and children." The dynamics of raising boys is especially difficult for women due to the gender difference and the fact that women tend to be nurturing and helpful while allowing their sons to evolve into men in a constantly shifting masculine paradigm. Through research and interviews from her own practice, Meeker gives women the necessary tools to understand that perfection is not a realistic goal but that doing the best one can will ensure good results. Equally useful to single mothers and women with husbands is the advice that sons need to know they are loved from a very young age, as this builds a foundation of confidence in a child, a base that allows a boy to gradually move away from his mother as he interacts with male peers and elders. A boy's home life must be solid: a safe haven to return to regardless of his age, a place where his thoughts and feelings are respected and where he can express his hopes and dreams without fear of judgment. Meeker recommends introducing boys to religion, prayer and the unconditional love that comes from having a strong faith to boost self-confidence. She also skillfully navigates the world of sex—from a boy's first body awareness to the powerful effects of pornography and sexual messages embedded in social media, video games and news media, to his interactions in the world of girls and women. A mother's imprint on her son is powerful right from birth and remains so throughout her son's life. Meeker's advice gives women the tools to navigate these often rocky waters with confidence.
Solid, practical advice for women on how to properly nurture their sons.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-51809-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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