Tuesday's Book Review

I am a reader. I enjoy reading and over my 30 year lifespan I have read hundreds if not thousands of books.
As we prepared to become adoptive parents there are things that you can do that make you look better. (Note to reader: they will tell you it is not a competition, lies I tell you lies! :) ...) Because we realized that they would be comparing us to other potential parents the Hubs and I decided that we would do everything that we could to get the upper hand. (Let's be real, we wanted a kid and we were willing to do just about anything). So we plunged into parenting/adoption education, taking every class, reading every book and watching every movie that we possibly could so that we could add it to THE LIST (the piece of paper that told the committee why were so much better than everyone else).
I, especially, read book after book after book. What we lacked in parenting experience I made up for in parenting books. Some of them were absolute gems and others weren't worth the paper they were printed on. That is the way of books I suppose.
While my reading on topics related to parenting/adoption has slowed somewhat now that we have a child I have continued to delve into this topic frequently. (Read here...now that I know that I don't know anything I seek the wisdom of others).
Recently I have read two books that I am going to tell you about today.

The first book is Lost in School: Why our Kids with Behavaioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them by Dr. Ross Greene

Photo is from www.lostatschool.org

This book is excellent! (I have also read is first book The Explosive Child, also a great read). It is not your average parenting methods and let me tell you when you have children that you can't use traditional parents methods on or they just don't work this book is a God send. I don't necessarily believe that this is the only way to parent well, but I do believe that he offers insights that are often overlooked. He is an advocate of actually listening to your child and working with them to make school and home a better place. I highly recommend this book!

The second book I read is called Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. 

Photo taken from http://www.unconditionalparenting.com/UP/

Let me start by saying that I was excited to read this book. I has high hopes. Sadly my hopes were dashed. This book has some good points, I don't want anyone to think that I think everything that Alfie Kohn says is wrong. However, by and large I was hugely disappointed. The author spends the first 6 chapters talking about why every parenting method except for his is wrong and in effect makes you a bad parent. The part where he officially lost me was when he said that the Bible sadistically describes God's conditional love. (Yes, sadistic is his word not mine). I am all for kids feeling unconditional love from their parents. They need to know that no matter what they do they are always loved and accepted. What I did not appreciate was the judgement on my belief system, which according to him makes me a bad parent. His book is also humanistic in its approach. He believes that overall people are good and it is wrong for a parent to think that a child's motives may not be pure. I do not recommend this book. The cons overwhelm the pros in my opinion. 

Until next time...

Happy Reading!