Jul 30, 2008

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

Understanding How Your Children See the World
by Barbara F. Meltz

Drawing on a wide range of resources- psychologists, teachers, pediatricians, parents, researchers, etc- this book offers advice on a multitude of parenting issues. It looks at each problem from the child's point of view, promoting better understanding of why kids do certain things and how they feel about them (especially useful when children can't or won't talk about it). Including imaginary friends, keeping secrets, stealing, running away, media influences, school problems, and much much more. Many of the issues are addressed as developmental milestones, with indications of when they actually become serious problems. This book gave me lots to think about. Most of the issues discussed don't really apply- my child isn't school-age yet- but the concepts and strategies do. I did get a bit tired after a while of how the advice seemed to always come down to a recommended sentence (if you child does this, say this, not this) where I think it could have been more flexible. But overall, Put Yourself in Their Shoes is a good resource, one I'm considering adding to my shelf someday.

Rating: 4/5                       418 pages, 1999

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous7/30/2008

    Sounds interesting. Is it limited to a narrow age range? Or all elementary school aged kids?

    ReplyDelete
  2. It more or less follows the age groups, beginning with some toddler issues, preschool, working through grade school and touching a little bit on teenagers. I would say most of the book focuses on grade school ages, although if you can glean well, the advice applies to a variety of ages and situations.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are screened due to spam.