Small Wonder: How to Answer Your Child's Impossible Questions About Life

A guide for parents who want meaningful answers to the "big" questions children ask includes developmental guidelines, age-appropriate replies, and exercises to help parents draw on their own experiences, as well as religious, family, and community traditions.

Journalist and psychotherapist Fitzpatrick (Something More: Nurturing Your Child's Spiritual Growth), who is also a mother of two, here acknowledges, "Today we lack answers to questions our great-grandparents took for granted." This fact may surface with particular impact when children are asking the questions and actually expect to get answers. The author guides parents in approaching such queries, advising us to avoid simple or opportunistic responses. "By attending to a child's questions," notes Fitzpatrick, "we nurture her whole self." Individual chapters discuss a given subject (e.g., God, death), providing sample questions and thoughtful, extended replies in italic print. Some of the questions: "Did God make the universe?"; "What's a soul?"; and "What's heaven?" Other questions, however, are much more pragmatic: "How much money do you make?" The format is accessible, the attitude's constructive and no one is patronized. Maybe there will be a sequel.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.