Children Are From Heaven - Hardcover

Gray, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060175656 ISBN 13: 9780060175658

Publisher: Harper, 1999

Synopsis

In his travels, lectures, and seminars, the book John Gray has been most often asked to write is a parenting book. After years of serious thought, workshops, and practical applications, John Gray has created a brilliantly original and effective system that he calls positive parenting, for children of all ages, from birth though the teenage years. Completing the notion that Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, he adds. . .and Children Are from Heaven.

John Gray has discovered that children today do not need to be motivated by fear of punishment. Instead, they can easily be motivated by reward and the natural, healthy desire to please their parents.

Children Are from Heaven covers the different skills of positive parenting to help improve communication, increase cooperation, and motivate your children. Central to this new approach to parenting are the five positive messages your children need to learn again and again:

• It's okay to be different

• It's okay to make mistakes

• It's okay to express negative emotions

• It's okay to want more

• It's okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses

When these messages are put into practice -- and John Gray shows you how -- your children will develop the necessary skills for successful living: forgiveness of others and themselves, sharing, delayed gratification, self-esteem, patience, persistence respect for others and themselves, cooperation compassion, confidence, and the ability to be happy. With this new approach, you will be allowing your children to develop fully during each stage of their growth.

John Gray's reassuring message is that children are from heaven and they already have within themselves what they need to grow. Your job as a parent is to support that process. By applying the five messages and different skills of positive parenting, your children will receive what they need to become more cooperative, confident, and compassionate.

About this title

Review

Psychologist John Gray (he of Men Are from Mars... fame) cites a need to shift from "fear-based parenting" (a punitive and oppressive approach to child rearing) to "love-based parenting" (which accepts children's desires and negative emotions while still setting reasonable limits). With child and teen violence increasing, rampant low self-esteem, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and attention deficit disorder, he says, "the Western free world is experiencing a crisis in parenting. Almost all parents today are questioning both the old and the new ways of parenting. Nothing seems to be working."

He suggests "Five Messages of Positive Parenting" that will facilitate such a shift:

1. It's okay to be different.
2. It's okay to make mistakes.
3. It's okay to express negative emotions.
4. It's okay to want more.
5. It's okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses.

Although his parenting philosophy is not necessarily revolutionary (think "positive discipline"), Gray manages to keep this parenting primer contemporary by weaving in specific challenges of new-millennium families--such as our tendency to be consumer-driven and overscheduled. "When parents learn what their children really need, they are less motivated to create money to acquire things and more motivated to create time to enjoy their family," Gray writes. "The greatest wealth for a parent today is time." --Gail Hudson

About the Author

John Gray, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading relationship experts, and an authority on improving communication styles for couples, companies, and communities. His many books have sold more than fifty million copies in fifty different languages worldwide. John lives with his wife and children in northern California.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0060175656
• ISBN 13: 9780060175658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400