The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting - Softcover

Steinberg, Laurence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743251164 ISBN 13: 9780743251167

Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Most parents do a pretty good job of raising kids, says psychologist Laurence Steinberg, but truly effective parenting means not just relying on natural instincts but also on knowing what works and why. In The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting, Dr. Steinberg distills decades of research into a parenting book that explains the fundamentals of raising happy, healthy children, giving readers an invaluable map to help them navigate parenthood from infancy to adolescence.

Dr. Steinberg found that the basic principles for effective parenting are simple and universal, and apply to all parents and children regardless of background. He explains each principle and shows how to put it into action, using anecdotes and examples: from “What You Do Matters” (parents make an enormous difference; children are not simply the product of their genes) to “Establish Rules and Limits” (how to provide structure in your child's life, and how to handle conflicts over rules) and “Help Foster Your Child's Independence” (help your child think through decisions instead of making them for him or her). Concise and authoritative, written with warmth and compassion, The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting is an intelligent guide to raising a happy, healthy child and to becoming a happier, more confident parent in the process.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Laurence Steinberg, PhD, is considered to be the world’s leading authority on adolescence and young adulthood. He currently is the Distinguished University Professor and Laurel H. Carnell Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University. In addition to authoring the leading college textbook on adolescence, just published in its thirteenth edition, Larry has authored or coauthored nearly 500 scholarly articles on adolescence as well as seventeen books. His trade books include The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting, which has been translated into ten other languages; You and Your Adolescent; and most recently, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence, which has been translated into seven other languages. 
 

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The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting

By Laurence Steinberg

Simon & Schuster

Copyright ©2005 Laurence Steinberg
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0743251164

Chapter One: Being a Better Parent

When people find out that I'm both a parent and a psychologist who has spent his entire career studying parenting, I'm often asked whether what I've learned as a researcher has helped me to be a better parent. The answer is that of course it has. It's like asking a professional chef whether studying cooking for a living has made him or her better in the kitchen at home. How could it not? Like anything else, good parenting requires knowledge.

I've studied parents and their children for well over twenty-five years. I've published several books and hundreds of articles on parenting and child development, and I've been the editor in charge of articles on parent-child relationships for the most prestigious scientific journal in the field of child psychology. My own instincts as a parent have been shaped by what I've devoted my career to studying, and when I've had doubts or questions about what to do as a parent -- as all parents, even experts, invariably do -- I have always regained my bearings by thinking about what I've learned from the thousands of families I've studied and the thousands of research reports I've read.

In this book, I'm going to share this understanding with you.

This book is different from other books on parenting because it is based on the science of good parenting, on literally thousands of well-designed research studies -- research that is just as credible as the research that scientists use to test new drugs, design safer automobiles, and construct sturdier buildings. Unlike most other parenting books on the market, this one is not based on one person's opinion, or someone's experiences in raising a couple of children, or the observations somebody made over the course of working with a few dozen families in a clinical practice. The advice contained in this book is based on what scientists who study parenting have learned from decades of systematic research involving hundreds of thousands of families. What I've done is to synthesize and communicate what the experts have learned in a language that nonexperts can understand. I've boiled this knowledge down into ten basic principles.

This book is not about the nuts and bolts of parenting; it is not about how to feed, dress, teach, stimulate, or play with your child. There are many excellent books on the market that cover these topics comprehensively, written for parents with children of different ages.

This book is more about the philosophy of good parenting. It describes an approach to parenting that cuts across different issues and different age periods. What you'll learn is a general orientation to raising children that is grounded in the most accurate and up-to-date scientific information available.

Raising children is not typically something we think of as especially scientific. It may surprise you to learn, though, that there is a science of effective parenting and that there is an awful lot more systematic research on parenting than on many other aspects of life where we routinely rely on science to guide us. In fact, child psychologists and other experts have been studying parenting for about seventy-five years, and it is one of the most well-researched areas in the entire field of social science.

More important, the study of parenting is an area of research in which the findings are remarkably consistent, and where the findings have remained remarkably consistent over time. It's hard to think of many areas of research about which we can say that. Guidance about what we should eat, how frequently we should exercise, or how we should cope with stress changes constantly. New medical treatments are invented all the time. Today's health advice contradicts what we heard just yesterday. But the scientific principles of good parenting have not changed one bit in close to forty years. In fact, the scientific evidence linking certain basic principles of parenting to healthy child development is so clear and so consistent that we can confidently say we know what works and what does not. If it seems that the advice given in popular books is inconsistent, it's because few popular books are grounded in well-documented science.

For the most part, parenting is something we just do, without really giving it much thought. Much of the time we don't stop and think about what we do as parents because circumstances don't permit us to. When you are scurrying around in the morning trying to find your children's homework before sending them off to school, or breaking up a fight between an older child and younger sibling who are going at each other in the backseat of the car, or trying to soothe a colicky infant when your head is pounding because the baby has been crying uninterrupted for the past half hour, you don't have the luxury of stopping and thinking about what the best approach might be. There are plenty of times when, as parents, all we can do is just react. This part of parenting will never change. A lot of parenting is driven by our instincts, our gut responses. But the truth is that some parents have better instincts than others. With a better understanding of what works when you parent, and why, and with enough practice, your instincts will get better.

There are plenty of situations where you do have time to think before you parent, though. When you are putting your preschooler to bed the night before the first day of school. When your third-grader hands you a terrific report card. When your seventh-grader is upset because her friends have jilted her. When your teenager comes home later than your agreed-upon curfew. At these moments, you have time to stop and think through what you should do before you act, and your actions should be guided by the best information on how to handle the situation most effectively. The more you practice good parenting when you do have time to think before you act, the more natural good parenting will become during those moments when you are responding instinctively.

One of the most encouraging findings from research on children's development is that the fundamentals of good parenting are the same regardless of whether your child is male or female, six or sixteen, an only child, a twin, or a child with multiple siblings. They are the same regardless of whether the primary parent is a mother, a father, or some other caregiver. The basic principles of good parenting have been corroborated in studies done in different parts of the world, with different ethnic and racial groups, in poor as well as in rich families, and in families with divorced, separated, and married parents. The same principles hold true whether you are a biological parent, an adoptive parent, or a foster parent. They apply to parents with average children and to those with children who have special needs. They even hold true for individuals who work with children, like teachers, coaches, and mentors. The evidence is that strong.

People define good parenting in different ways, so let me get right to the point about my own definition. In my view, good parenting is parenting that fosters psychological adjustment -- elements like honesty, empathy, self-reliance, kindness, cooperation, self-control, and cheerfulness. Good parenting is parenting that helps children succeed in school; it promotes the development of intellectual curiosity, motivation to learn, and desire to achieve. Good parenting is parenting that deters children from antisocial behavior,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Simon & Schuster
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0743251164
• ISBN 13: 9780743251167
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar