I finally got my copy of The Child Whisperer in the mail! It was pretty exciting to be able to read the PDF, but having the hard copy in my hand is even better. Now I need to write a review, but I don’t know where to start.
When my daughter saw the cover, her first response was that it was an insulting knock off of The Dog Whisperer, and that she didn’t want to be treated like a dog. I informed her that the Horse Whisperer came first, and the whole reason that book was successful was that treating creatures with respect and honoring their individuality was a radical idea. You needed to understand and appreciate your dog’s or horse’s nature in order to get the results you wanted; “training” them through one-size-fits all domination just didn’t work. Read More
Most people think they know how to keep their child safe: don’t talk to strangers, if you’re lost find a policeman. This is what we were told growing up, and nothing happened to us, right? What we don’t realize is that this advice is dated at best, and is potentially very dangerous. Mostly we try to say in our comfort zone by not thinking about these things except when something happens to someone else. And then we just get scared. But there’s an alternative to being ignorant, or scared.
Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin De Becker debunks the safety myths we grew up with and gives parents excellent advice on how to keep their children safe in an increasingly scary world. De Becker is a famous security consultant and wrote the book The Gift of Fear. His main point in that book is that most people have lost the ability to interpret and respond to their instinctual fear response and have not developed the judgment to know when they should, or shouldn’t be afraid. So, they spend most of their time hyped up in a completely wrong fear state (is that weird-looking guy in the book store really dangerous–probably not) and not picking up on cues when we should (that really nice guy is asking me too many personal questions.) The book is well worth reading, and more empowering than scary. Read More
