Books on Parenting

NurtureShock is a parenting book with a strong scientific foundation that's designed to have a big impact on breaking some of society's misguided conventions regarding parenting and education; which looks to be an exceptionally good thing. It focuses on a number of issues relating to parenting and education in which good science shows us a different view from current cultural assumptions.

Here's a small sampling from the Introduction which will give you a little sense of what the authors' intentions and attitudes are:

This little book is deceptively slim yet bursting with wisdom, original prayers, advice and the encouragement of one who knows.

In his latest book, Dr. Ray Guarendi offers more of his time-tested advice (Discipline That Lasts a Lifetime 2003, You're a Better Parent Than You Think 1985, DVD 2006) on raising children, but this time with a focus entirely on the teenage years. In question and answer format, Dr. Ray discusses teens and jobs, driving, dating, disrespect, sibling struggles and more.

Danielle Bean is a Catholic homeschool mom with a bunch of kids, a great sense of humor and a very helpful sense of perspective. Her book is a collection of short reflections on events in her life that any mom-of-many can relate to. Somehow, in the midst of these engaging stories of noise and illness and chaos, great truths glimmer just below the surface. Truths about God and reality and what really matters. Encouraging truths that give us perspective when things don't go quite right and the world simply doesn't understand.

Fans of Danielle's first book, My Cup of Tea and her blog will undoubtedly be eager to absorb more of her wisdom and good humor – and with good reason. This, her second book, is aimed especially at younger moms who are overwhelmed and still trying to figure out how to work out a lot of the details of smoothly running their homes (and lives). These moms tend to feel guilty for not “having it all together” and wonder how older, more experienced moms with more kids ever manage their large brood and complex family life.

This is a "little book." You know what I mean: you take a look, think you can knock this book off by lunch time, and that'll be that.

But, Love in the Little Things is bigger than that. Yes, the reading is quick and easy, but the ideas loom larger than their appearance. Hmmm ... kind of like Jesus of Nazareth ... growing up in a non-descript way, living a quiet family life, full of hidden things beyond this earthly realm, beyond our imagining.

When picking up this book, my first question, since I had never heard of it, was: what is the Marianist Method of Virtues? A footnote in the introduction answered this question. It is inspired by the teaching of Marianist founder, Father William Joseph Chaminade and is proposed not to be an imitation of Christ’s virtues so much as a union with Him through the virtues. The participant works in collaboration with the Holy Spirit and Mary to follow a three-fold plan of growing in virtue: preparation, purification and consummation.

The back of the book introduces this title quite well: "After Al Parisi's battle with brain cancer left him unable to run the company he founded and took public, he created a better job: CEO of the Parisi family. One of his first initiatives was to write inspirational advice to his children on their lunch bags each day. In this companion book to the original Lunch Bag Notes, Al has written a year's worth of notes to his son, Anthony, and to all teenage boys."

I frequently avoid reading book introductions because they have all-too-often caused me to "stall" in the book. This one shouldn't be missed - it makes you more eager to read the "meat" of the book and makes it more meaningful at the same time. We are introduced to the Parisi family (a little background can be a wonderful thing) and the origin of the inspirational notes that dad, Al, wrote on his daughter's lunch bags during high school.