Raising a Kid Who Can

Simple Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Adaptability and Emotional Strength

By: Catherine McCarthy, Heather Tedesco, Jennifer Weaver

Three mental health professionals cut through the “parenting advice” noise with this accessible, easy-to-skim book filled with actionable strategies and tips to help parents focus only what’s truly essential and build their child’s neurobiological capacity to thrive where they are planted, in good times and bad.  

It’s time to parent smarter, not harder. Filled with scientifically based and eminently actionable advice and strategies, The Parents’ Playbook boils down the ten essential things that every child needs to thrive so that parents can stop drowning in information and get to the business of raising healthier, happier humans. Written by three mental health professionals who work with families, organized for easy skimming, and designed to be useful at any stage in a child’s life, the book devotes one short, impactful chapter per principle, including Resilience, Attention and Self-Control, Psychological Flexibility, Self-Motivation, Compassion and Gratitude.  The result is a new approach to a parenting guide, one that takes a wholistic approach to nurturing a child’s development and help parents get right to the information they need, when they need it.

The Teenage Brain

By: Frances E Jensen MD

Renowned neurologist Dr. Frances E. Jensen offers a revolutionary look at the brains of teenagers, dispelling myths and offering practical advice for teens, parents and teachers. As a mother, teacher, researcher, clinician and frequent lecturer to parents and teens, Dr. Jensen is in a unique position to explain to readers the mystery and magic of the teen brain. In this book, she brings to readers the new, sometimes astonishing findings that are buried in academic journals. She explores myths about adolescent behavior and offers practical suggestions on how to negotiate this difficult and dynamic life stage for parents and teachers, and even the teens themselves.

The Teenage Brain is one of the first books to focus exclusively on the mind-development of adolescents. Some of the recent findings it discusses include:

How teens are better learners than adults because their brain cells more readily “build” memories than those of adults. But this special gift has a down side: their cells’ heightened adaptability can be hijacked by addiction, and the adolescent brain can form a stronger and longer addiction than the brain of an adult.
How Venus and Mars really emerge in adolescence. In fact, studies show that girls’ brains are a full two years more mature than boys’ brains in the mid-teens, possibly explaining lots of differences seen in the classroom as well as in their social behaviour.
How adolescents may not be as resilient to the effects of drugs as we think they are! Recent experimental and human studies show that occasional use of marijuana, for instance, can cause lingering memory problems even days after smoking, and that long-term use of pot in adolescence impacts the adult I.Q.
How multi-tasking causes divided attention and has been shown to reduce learning ability in the teenage brain. Multi-tasking also has some addictive qualities that may result in a habitually short attention span in teenagers.
How emotionally stressful situations may impact the adolescent more than the adult. Stress in these formative years can have permanent effects on mental health and has been reported to lead to a higher risk of certain neuropsychiatric disorders, such as depression.
The Teenage Brain presents hard data intermingled with accessible and relatable anecdotes drawn from Dr. Jensen’s experiences as a parent, clinician and public speaker. It offers practical suggestions on how parents, teens, schools and even the legal system can better deal with adolescents on their journey into adulthood.

The Collapse of Parenting

By: Leonard Sax

An acclaimed parenting and childhood development expert argues that kids today are suffering, both physically and mentally, because parents have abdicated authority,and explains how to reverse this trend.

In The Collapse of Parenting, physician, psychologist, and internationally acclaimed author Leonard Sax presents data documenting a dramatic decline in the achievement and psychological health of American children. Sax argues that rising levels of obesity, depression, and anxiety among young people- as well as the explosion in prescribing psychiatric medications to kids- can all be traced to parents letting their kids call the shots.

Many parents are afraid of seeming too dictatorial and end up abdicating their authority rather than taking a stand with their own children. If kids refuse to eat anything green and demand pizza instead, some parents give in, inadvertently raising children who are more likely to become obese. If children are given smartphones and allowed to spend the bulk of their free time texting, playing video games, and surfing the Internet, they become increasingly reliant on peers and the media for guidance on how to live, rather than getting such guidance at home.

And if they won’t sit still in class or listen to adults, they’re often prescribed medication, a quick fix that actually undermines their self-control. In short, Sax argues, parents are failing to prioritize the parent-child relationship and are allowing a child-peer dynamic to take precedence. The result is children who have no absolute standard of right and wrong, who lack discipline, and who look to their peers and the Internet for direction, instead of looking to their parents. But there is hope. Sax shows how parents can help their kids by reasserting their authority, by limiting time with screens, by encouraging better habits at the dinner table and at bedtime, and by teaching humility and perspective.

Drawing on more than twenty-five years of experience as a family physician and psychologist, along with hundreds of interviews with children, parents, and teachers across the United States and around the world, Sax offers a blueprint parents can use to refresh and renew their relationships with their children to help their children thrive in an increasingly complicated world.

About the Author

Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D., is a doctor and psychologist, and the founder of the National Association for Choice in Education (NACE). The author of Boys Adrift and Girls on the Edge, Sax lives in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.