Wisdom for Today’s Woman: Insights from Esther

With blackberries, cell phones, and nonstop email keeping parents and kids connected in the college years and early adulthood, many parents are wondering, How much is too much? When is it right to help and when is it better to step away? In The iConnected Parent, a psychology professor and a New York Times journalist provide invaluable advice for this increasingly complicated transitional time, showing parents how to stay connected with their kids in a healthy, helpful, noninvasive way.

“Just let go!” That’s what parents have been told to do when their kids go to college. But in our speed-dial culture, with BlackBerries and even Skype, parents and kids are now more than ever in constant contact. Today’s iConnected parents say they are closer to their kids than their parents were to them—and this generation of families prefers it that way. Parents are their children’s mentors, confidants, and friends—but is this good for the kids? Are parents really letting go—and does that matter?

Dr. Barbara Hofer, a Middlebury College professor of psychology, and Abigail Sullivan Moore, a journalist who has reported on college and high school trends for the New York Times, answer these questions and more in their groundbreaking, compelling account of both the good and the bad of close communication in the college years and beyond. An essential assessment of the state of parent-child relationships in an age of instant communication, The iConnected Parent goes beyond sounding the alarm about the ways many young adults are failing to develop independence to describe the healthy, mutually fulfilling relationships that can emerge when families grow closer in our wired world.

Communicating an average of thirteen times a week, parents and their college-age kids are having a hard time letting go. Hofer’s research and Moore’s extensive reporting reveal how this trend is shaping families, schools, and workplaces, and the challenge it poses for students with mental health and learning issues. Until recently, students handled college on their own, learning life’s lessons and growing up in the process. Now, many students turn to their parents for instant answers to everyday questions. “My roommate’s boyfriend is here all the time and I have no privacy! What should I do?” “Can you edit my paper tonight? It’s due tomorrow.” “What setting should I use to wash my jeans?” And Mom and Dad are not just the Google and Wikipedia for overcoming daily pitfalls; Hofer and Moore have discovered that some parents get involved in unprecedented ways, phoning professors and classmates, choosing their child’s courses, and even crossing the lines set by university honor codes with the academic help they provide. Hofer and Moore offer practical advice, from the years before college through the years after graduation, on how parents can stay connected to their kids while giving them the space they need to become independent adults.

Cell phones and laptops don’t come with parenting instructions. The iConnected Parent is an invaluable guide for any parent with a child heading to or already on campus.

The Ultimate Resource Book for Adoptive Families

Adoption is an act of love. But it is successful only when parents are prepared to deal with the special needs and circumstances of the adopted child. Judith Schaffer and Christina Lindstrom, both psychotherapists, one an adoptive parent, use their extensive experience to create a comprehensive guide that anticipates practically every situation that adoptive parents can encounter. They provide compassionate, tested advice for parents before, during, and after the adoption. The book includes resources such as:

· A unique age-correlated guide that highlights both physical and psychological developments from birth through adolescence;
· Special advice for single adoptive parents, multiracial families, and children who have special needs;
· Specific guidelines for how and when to tell children they are adopted;
· Real help in handling the bigotry often expressed against children of interracial adoption;
· Suggested responses to comments and unwelcome advice from strangers, neighbors, and family;
· Answers to the questions parents most often ask at each stage of rearing an adopted child;
· Ways to handle a child’s request to find their birth parents;
· And more!

our Seven-Year-Old is devoted to the delightful but often anxious and withdrawn child of Seven. Although any seven-year-old will have moments of exuberance, security, and happiness, in general this is an age of introspection. As it begins, parents and teachers may welcome the quiet after the tussles and tangles of Six. But once the child of Seven starts to withdraw it’s almost as though he doesn’t know where or when to stop. Seven-year-olds feel picked on by family, friends, and teachers alike; they worry that no one likes them; they expect every little task to prove too difficult to handle; tears come easily at this age.

With wit and wisdom, Dr. Ames of the highly respected Gesell Institute and Carol Chase Haber offer insights into what children this age are feeling and thinking, and how parents can best deal with these moody, serious Sevens.

American families are sick of rudeness, aggression, and unruly behavior. They are searching for ways to cool down society — and bring up kids who win at life by peaceful, compassionate, and rational means, rather than the opposite. This is the book that casts out a new lifeline to them and speaks positively to their deepest needs and yearnings. Explaining that kindness is the heart and core of civility and manners in any society, Letitia Baldrige, America’s number one best-selling authority on manners, has finally written the book that millions have been waiting for: a road map to raising and guiding kids who succeed in life through decency and honor.

“It all starts in the home,” says Baldrige, as she shows parents and other concerned adults how to teach kids to:

Gain respect and become leaders — at home, at school, and in the larger world — without becoming wimps or bullies.

Defuse explosive situations with words and actions that turn hostility into harmony.

Use conciliation instead of confrontation with peers, authority figures, and others.

Be courteous and compassionate with family and friends and out in public while still standing up for themselves.

Learn behaviors that will make them liked and respected and will make the world around them a better place as they grow up. And much more…

Baldrige accomplishes this using real-life examples of encounters between adults and young people and the day-to-day interactions between young peers — at home, at school, and out in the world — plus the compelling and often personal true stories and anecdotes that have made her other books so warm and conversational and loved by millions.

In his longtime best-sellingBook of Virtues, William Bennett showed us the values we should strive for to get life back on track again. In her book, Letitia Baldrige shows us how to apply those principles in everyday life, twenty-four hours a day — and get results!