Top 10 Parenting Books- Part 2

 

Book number 9 on my countdown of  favorite parenting books is one I just finished reading last month.  Life Skills for Kids- Equipping Your Child for the Real World by Christine M. Field has got to be one of the most absolutely practical books out there for parents.  It's about teaching our kids the things they really need to know to manage everyday life. 

 

Sometimes as a homeschooling parent I can get tunnel vision on academics.  How is my child doing with reading and math, history and science?  Those are important, but in my efforts to help my children excel academically am I neglecting some basic life skills that they're going to need?  When my children leave home I want to know that they can prepare a healthy meal and do laundry, carry on a conversation and manage money.

This book has chapters about people skills, time and space organization, healthy habits, spiritual habits, decision making and more.  Each chapter outlines some things we can do with our kids to help them develop in these specific areas as preschoolers, school-age kids and teenagers.  I know this a book I will be referencing again and again as the years go by and I recommend this one for ALL parents regardless of the age of your kids or whether you're sending them to public school or teaching them at home.  It's like a textbook guiding parents through what their children need to know and how to help them get there.

Top 10 Parenting Books- Part 1

I admit it- I have a love/hate relationship with parenting books.  It all started when I was pregnant with my firstborn.  That's when I filled my bookshelf with all the pregnancy books I could get my hands on- and read them all religiously cover-to-cover.  I loved knowing what was going on in my unborn baby's development each week and I wanted to be sure that I was doing all the right things to prepare for her arrival.  But there was a problem.  The books didn't all agree!  One book said my baby was sucking her thumb this week and the next said she started that two weeks ago.  One book said natural childbirth was the way to go, another recommended taking advantage of the available pain medication.  How could I know what was right?  Who was telling me the truth?  How could I reconcile all these opposing views?

Well, if pregnancy books were bad, parenting books were way worse.  The stakes seemed even higher with this child finally in my arms.  I have a personality that wants to see everything as black or white so I felt like the differing opinions had to be right or wrong, but I couldn't figure out what was what.  For the first couple years this REALLY bothered me.  But I didn't stop reading the books and as I gained personal experience as a mother I started to realize that sometimes there isn't a right or wrong answer, there are just different options.  I could pray about my parenting decisions and think about what would work best for MY family, without having to stress quite so much about getting it exactly right the first time.  And I came to understand that it's okay to use some of the ideas in a book and throw out the ones that aren't going to work for me.

So, with this in mind, I have decided to share with you my top ten favorite parenting books.  These are the books that have most resonated with me and that I feel have positively impacted my parenting in one way or another.  You're not going to find any books about parenting teens in this list- I'm not there yet so I'll read those books later and let you know what I think of them in a few years.  You'll also notice that some of the books on my list were written more for Early Childhood Educators than parents.  As a mom with a background in Early Childhood Education I have naturally adapted ideas from that field into my every day parenting.

My plan is to share just one or two books per day from now until I get through the list.  So stay tuned. I'm going to save the very best for last.

 





Book number 10 on my list is one of the books I read while I was still pregnant with Princess.  The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Lache League International is much more than just a how-to-breastfeed manual.  This book taught me about the history of breastfeeding, the benefits of breastfeeding and the dangers of formula feeding, and lots of advice for how to handle the many challenges that can come up with breastfeeding.  All of that information helped me as I experienced various challenges myself with breastfeeding each of my three babies.  But I learned about more than just breastfeeding.  I also was introduced to many of  the attachment parenting philosophy ideas that have shaped how I view my role as a mom.  I recommend this book for moms expecting their first child who are planning to, or even considering, breastfeeding.