A concise, frank, easy-to-implement and genuinely helpful guide to setting digital boundaries.
A psychologist tackles one of today’s thorniest parenting problems.
The digital world often sneaks up on parents. Devices and media are multiplying and changing so fast, becoming nearly ubiquitous, that it can seem like family rules are always one step behind reality. Few parents want to offer unrestricted access to devices and media of all sorts, and even fewer want to ban them completely. Lender, in her debut book, offers a middle path. She wastes no time, setting up the central problem in just four pages: Electronic media can take over a family’s life. But, she says, her audience already knows that; they’re looking for a road to familial digital harmony. Lender quickly dives into her 10 key principles, including knowing today’s technology, setting expectations, being consistent and practicing what you preach. She is refreshingly specific about what constitute reasonable time limits and expectations for various ages and how to communicate those notions. Her most innovative piece of advice—creating a “positive digital floor plan”—is itself worth the price of admission: “The digital floor plan of your home, or the location of all the digital access points, can either greatly support your digital parenting plan or sabotage it,” she says. About a third of the book is dedicated to tools, such as worksheets, checklists, sample contracts to be agreed upon between parents and children, and the like. Some parents may balk at something as formal as a written contract or as rigid as a daily schedule, while others will find this kind of outside authority and its crystal-clear written communication to be just what their families need. Parents should expect the lists of social media sites, monitoring software and other online resources to go out of date fairly quickly—this is the modern world, after all—so independent research may be required. While Lender focuses on teens and tweens, it’s never too soon to start laying the groundwork for healthy relationships in the digital world; in fact, parents may find that, digitally speaking, their kids grow up even faster than they imagined.
A concise, frank, easy-to-implement and genuinely helpful guide to setting digital boundaries.Pub Date: April 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495945724
Page Count: 144
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Just what it sounds like. Journalist Saline (Dr. Snow, 1988) and Pulitzer Prizewinning photojournalist Wohlmuth present brief portraits of 36 sets of sisters. Wohlmuth's intelligent photographs capture a range of sisterly feeling from the severe to the giggly, while the texts function as plainspoken testimonials to the pleasures, difficulties, and duration of the sisterly bond. The sisters come in groups of two and up; some are infants, some in their 90s; two sisters are Sisters in the Roman Catholic Church; and, family values embracing transsexuality, one sister used to be her sister's brother. Some sisters are anonymous and others famous: Coretta Scott (King) and Edythe; supermodel Christy Turlington and her two sisters, Erin and Kelly; the Mandrell sisters; Wendy Wasserstein and her sibs, Sandra and Georgette. But the point isn't celebrity. The point is to celebrate the enduring relationship between girl-children.
Pub Date: Oct. 5, 1994
ISBN: 1-56138-450-X
Page Count: 136
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
A merry, if uneven, romp through an end-times conspiracy.
A novel about the end of cheap energy features compelling characters, dysfunctional families and a good dose of black humor.
Set against the lush backdrop of Tampa Bay, Fla., this novel combines the politics of peak oil and economic apartheid with characters and situations that rival Carl Hiaasen’s in their absurdity and black humor. Liz Delaney, recently widowed and inching herself back into life in a new career as a mental health professional, meets Bud Jackson, a renegade journalist whose discoveries about the truth behind the worldwide energy economy land him in a mental institution. What ensues is seven days of hectic revelations about the potential collapse of everyday life, brushes with death, social commentary, examinations of power and an arch look at our healthcare system. Added to the mix are Liz’s blackmailing and murdering quadriplegic brother, his nymphomaniac wife, an evangelical plastic surgeon who runs the Born Again Clinic and a wise professor in a mangrove swamp, among other memorable characters. And yes, there is a hurricane. Despite of–or because of–these elements, this surreal narrative works. Strong descriptions of patients and staff make the hospital and institutional settings compelling in their compassion and humanity. Wry humor in discussions of consumer behavior and greed relieves the polemic that drives the novel. While the main narrative is an apocalyptic one, larger-than-life characters and wacky situations–like the huge hired bomb maker who wears a bright yellow shirt and is interrupted, twice, while trying to set a car bomb–engage the reader. Unfortunately, humor and family dysfunction diminish as the story reaches its climax. Action-packed scenes and plot turns excite, but character development and dialogue become mired down with socio-political rhetoric: “people are placated by dreams of wealth while a distant upper stream actually benefits from their labors.” Still, a taut plot, hilarious characters and a vivid portrayal of different aspects of health–mental, environmental and cultural–provide a rollicking read.
A merry, if uneven, romp through an end-times conspiracy.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2008
ISBN: 978-1419690648
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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