Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff

I thought this book was absolutely fascinating about parenting in indigenous cultures. The author goes to three different indigenous cultures (Mayan, Inuit, and Hadzabe) and observes and interviews parents about how they parent and what they do differently from our WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) parenting styles. Turns out, WEIRD parenting is really different from the way that most parents have done it for millennia--but the parenting that these indigenous cultures are doing is based off of what has worked for generations and hasn't changed as much. I thought that was one of the most compelling arguments for the book--our parenting style in WEIRD countries has only been happening for two or three generations at most, and most parenting articles and research being done in WEIRD countries is based only on WEIRD parents and kids so nothing has actually been generationally proven to work. 

It was really interesting just learning about these three different cultures and hearing about what she observed from these groups, but also super, super informative. I thought Doucleff did such a good job describing what the parents in these other cultures were doing, but then also breaking it down and giving specific, actionable items that parents could try. It was a cross between anthropological research and parenting, and I was super into it. I think I want to buy a hard copy so I can go back and reference it again because I know I will want to remember what she wrote about. I read it as an e-book on my phone but I then checked out a hard copy from the library because I wanted to read through it more thoroughly again and take better notes. 

Major ideas that I got from the book:

• Instead of just giving kids chores to do, make them involved in helping with the family as a whole. We all work together and make contributions to the family. Give them real responsibilities that are really helpful. 
• Minimize child-centered activities and toys/entertainment. Maximize their exposure to the adult world and bring them along on errands and do activities that you would want to do even without them.
• Don't force an issue is the kid is resisting a request. Don't nag and don't force. Practice encouragement. Use praise very sparingly, and when you do use it, praise an overall value like helpfulness or maturity. 
• Remember that anger towards a child is unproductive. It generates conflict, builds tension, stops communication. Every time we yell at a child, we teach them to yell, and we let them practice getting angry and yelling. When we respond with calmness, we give them a chance to practice calmness and calming down. 
• If you feel angry, stay quiet. Don't talk. Walk away until you can be calm. 
• Teach yourself to have less/no anger towards children. Change how you view their behavior and expect misbehavior. Never argue or negotiate with a child. Stop forcing them to do things and use encouragement instead. 
• Responding to tantrums: Go low-energy when they're screaming. Stand near them silently and physically support them. Touch them gently. Help the child to replace their anger with the feeling of awe by finding something beautiful to look at. Go outside. 
• Responding to everyday misbehaviors: Use the look. Calmly state the consequences of the child's actions then walk away. Ask the child a question that will get them to think ("Who's being disrespectful? Who's hitting?"). Give the misbehaving child a task/responsibility. 
• Use stories and dramas to encourage children to behave and to learn values. Tell stories from your childhood, put on a puppet show, use a monster story, use an inanimate object to help teach what to do.
• Reduce how often you instruct your child. Try to keep it to 3 commands an hour. Give the kids autonomy in certain areas/places where you can watch and only minimally interfere.
• Use T.E.A.M. parenting:
• T: Togetherness
• E: Encourage
• A: Autonomy
• M: Minimize Interference
• T.E.A.M. parenting is different from helicopter and free-range parenting because parents are in charge of macro-parenting issues, like scheduling and activities. But within those family-centered activities, the child is largely in charge of their own behavior with autonomy and minimal interference. 

The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler

This was a book I didn't expect to get so invested in. This is a parenting book that's not based on advice from therapists, but based on research about what works and how to make your family as happy as possible. I didn't feel like much of this information was brand new--I've definitely heard it all before--but it was really well-organized and really easily accessible, and I highlighted a bunch of sections that I wanted to remember. I wanted to write them all down here so I can refer back to this... since I just read this as an e-book from the library. 

-Family Meetings! Super helpful to allow your family to adapt and improve on a weekly basis. Three questions to ask: 

1. What things went well in our family this week?

2. What things could we improve in our family?

3. What things will you commit to working on this week?

-Agile Family Manifesto:

1. Solutions exist.

2. Empower the children. Allow kids to have a say in setting their goals each week and decide on their own punishments/consequences. 

3. Parents aren't invincible. 

4. Create a safe zone. 

5. Build in flexibility. 

-Build in a family narrative. The most healthful narrative is the oscillating family narrative: we've had our ups and downs, we had setbacks, but no matter what else happened, we always stuck together as a family. Kids who can answer the questions in the "Do You Know" scale are better adjusted and happier.

-Family dinner is the ideal time to give kids this family history. Ideas: 10-50-1. 10 minutes of quality talk per meal. Let your kids talk at least 50% of the time. Teach your kids 1 new word every meal, playing simple vocabulary games. Have autobiography night; have the kids tell you stories from their own past. Word game night: thesaurus night, alliteration game, fill in the blank, what's the difference between...

-Have a family mission statement. Keep it short, make it a memorable experience coming up with it, post it in a prominent place. Decide what are your family values (he has a list of 80 in the book) and which you want to emphasize the most.

What words best describe our family?

What is most important to our family?

What are our strengths as a family?

What sayings best capture our family?

"Creating a family identity is the collective equivalent of imagining your best possible self. It forces you to conceive, construct, then put in a public place a written ideal of what you want your family to be."

-Talking about money. All couples should have quarterly meetings to discuss financial matters. Talk about money with your kids and have it be an ongoing conversation. 

-Handling conflict. Teach your kids to think about yourself first. What did you do? Be curious about the other person and what they're feeling. Apologize. Have the conversation or you'll be handling conflict for the rest of your life. 

-Marriage relationship: Try something novel with your partner, go on double dates. 

-Spaces: Kids need their own personal, private space. They love to create "secret" hideouts like clubhouses. 

-Vacations: Making a vacation into an "amazing race" style game with points for accomplishing certain tasks. Send them on "missions" to accomplish things and keep them excited. 

Biggest points:

Adapt all the time. 

Talk a lot. 

Go out and play. 

Rage Against the Minivan by Kristen Howerton

I actually really liked this parenting book. It was kind of an anti-parenting book, not one that gives actual techniques and advice about what to do, but one that tells you how to chill and stop stressing so much about things that don't matter. Kristen Howerton seems like a fun person I'd love to hang out with sometime, and her realism was really refreshing and entertaining. I was laughing out loud at her story of the ants being all over her bag when she was running to teach a class and how she was picking ants off of herself while teaching. I also have no idea how she did it, having four children in four years (two by birth, two through adoption). Pretty amazing.

Lift by Kelly Corrigan

I don't know where I heard about this one, but I've listened to or read several of Kelly Corrigan's books by now, and always enjoyed them. So I guess I added this one to my to-read list, and then the library had an audiobook copy, and it was less than 2 hours, so of course I'm going to listen to it when I can knock it out so quickly! But this really didn't feel like it was worth the read. It was supposedly a letter to her daughters about how much she loves them, and it was really sweet in that way. What she had was well-written and sweet. But it just felt so short, kind of pointless, and not necessarily something that needed to be published. And I hate when people write about kids dying (her nephew, I think). This was nice, but nothing to write home about.

The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson

I am surprised by how much I loved this book. I really, really loved it. This is definitely a parenting book I want to buy, and to revisit again and again. It was all about children's need for autonomy, and our need (as parents) to allow them their autonomy and the ability to make informed choices about their lives. The authors work with a lot of kids who are super stressed out and struggling with their mental health because they feel like they have one shot to get into their college of choice and if they make one mistake or miss out on one type of extracurricular, they will have ruined their whole future. But the whole message of the book was that this is a FALSE assumption, there are plenty of paths to success, and everyone succeeds in different ways and at different times, and is it really worth it if you're giving up your happiness and mental health forever just to get into college? They said, "Agency may be the one most important factor in human happiness and well-being." This seemed like it went along really well with the message of Parenting with Love and Logic, about giving your children choices and allowing them to decide what they want to do. 

Two quotes I really liked (there were plenty more, but I didn't take great notes): "How do you capitalize on positive or tolerable stress while avoiding the bad kind? It is simple in theory, but tricky in execution: kids need a supportive adult around they need time to recover from a stressful event, and they need to have a sense of control over their lives." And: "When your home is a calm space, free of excessive fighting, anxiety, and pressure, it becomes the place to regenerate that your kids need."

It seems like one thing I can really work on as a parent--not that I think I'm doing a bad job at it yet, but I think I could always improve--is by making sure I don't TELL my kids what to do, but explain things to them and help them to come to the decision by themselves. I need to ask them to help instead of yelling at them to do it. I feel like this book gave a lot of great examples of how to talk to our kids (not explicitly, but in just the way they described things) that I think will/would be very helpful when we have teenagers. 

Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster W. Cline and Jim Fay

I've had this book on my shelf for at least five years and meant to read it this whole time. But Tommy and I are taking a parenting class through the self-reliance program with our church and in the first session they mentioned Parenting with Love and Logic and I thought it was high time that I read it. I started off really enjoying the book and the premise of the whole parenting with natural consequences idea, nodding along with each chapter. But by the end I felt like they'd kind of lost me, and stretched their idea of natural consequences too far. They even expect the idea of natural consequences to work on toddlers sucking their pacifiers (you just present the toddler with the choice of sucking their pacifier in their room or not having it in the family room, and that child will calmly decide on their own without any forcefulness needed from the parent!) and on angry teenagers yelling disrespectfully. It just seemed like they thought all children were robots who would only need one reminder or experience with a consequence before they would automatically learn and choose to act logically forevermore. I still think the idea has merit, and I think it's a great reminder to me not to rush in and solve all of my kids' problems. But it would have been more convincing to me if they hadn't acted like there were no limitations on this whole idea. 

HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie F. Mongan

I haven't read any birth books since I was pregnant with Dane. I figured once I had done it once I was fine and wouldn't need to change what I was already doing. However, I've been thinking about having this baby naturally, without medication. This is a HUGE shift from where I was even a few years ago, because I've never been interested in trying it or feeling a lot of pain. But I don't know why--I feel like I would like to try having this experience that is a huge part of being a woman. I have been really lucky in that I have hardly had any pain in any of my labors at all--my contractions have never hurt until after my water is broken, and then I've only felt a few contractions before my epidural kicks in, and I have never had any negative side effects from my epidurals. My labors have also gotten faster and faster--it took less than an hour after my water was broken until Lucy was born. So I think I'm a great candidate for a natural birth.

I just wanted to be ready for it and to figure out what I could do to prepare. Several friends who have had babies naturally recommended this book to me. Marie Mongan basically says that everyone can give birth without any pain as long as you stay relaxed and breathe correctly. I was annoyed by her tone in this book for a lot of the time--she basically argues that everything everyone believes about birth is a social construct (like pain, needing to push the baby out, the very idea of birth being hard) and that if we just use our mind to relax our bodies and not feel any fear, then we will have a magical, calm, easy birth. I do think she's probably right about relaxing and that allowing you to give birth more smoothly and easily, and I really appreciate the specific types of breathing and ideas that can help you get through labor. But I feel like she goes way too far in some of her claims, she doesn't provide any actual evidence of her claims (no science here), and the way she writes about birth will definitely make some women feel shamed or guilty if they have a bad experience or if it doesn't go perfectly smoothly like she promises. I definitely plan to try and incorporate the breathing and relaxing, and have been practicing every day for the last week or so, but I also plan to ignore some of her more obnoxious ideas and opinions, and probably go halfway. I also expect it to be pretty painful, but hopefully manageable with these breathing techniques. I am tough, I think I can do this.

How to Raise a Reader by Pamela Paul and Maria Russo

This book definitely had a great amount of information, and it would be super helpful to someone who had never had kids before... but it felt basically like there was no new information for me. I did like the booklists with ideas for books (although I can't ever get everything out of a booklist just by reading a short paragraph about the book). Overall, a great book that wasn't super interesting to me.

The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon

This is me with my thing for books about books, and this is one that I was excited about. It is basically a great motivator to get people to read to their children (and even other adults), because of the great benefits of it. Similar to The Read-Aloud Family, but that book is at least half a long booklist, and this was purely research and discussion about how great reading aloud is to your family and kids. The thing that I really liked about it was the high-quality writing style. You can tell that Gurdon is a professional writer, with amazing word choice and a really great way of putting her thoughts across. Every thought is well-developed and she provides a lot of evidence for everything she claims. If I weren't already a believer in reading aloud, I would be after reading this book. But I was also a little intimidated by Gurdon's definition of read-aloud time--she read aloud to her FIVE children EVERY NIGHT for an HOUR, even while she was a working mom! (Enter shocked face emojis here...) I feel like I struggle to find time to read that much to my three kids even while I stay at home with them. I read plenty of picture books to my little kids, but I don't read every night from chapter books to my bigger kids--it's gotten harder as they've gotten older and more busy and have things going on in the evenings (or I do).

But I really liked a few of the things Gurdon said about reading aloud. While talking about how hard it is to read in this time of business and cyber-distractions, she said, "Making the time to read together is almost an obstinate act of love. The mutual effort--the sacrifice of time--becomes part of the reward." I LOVED that about it being an obstinate act of love.

I also loved what she said about how important reading aloud is to teaching children about the past and about our values and our history and our beliefs. She said, "No child is an island, to paraphrase John Donne. Children come from families. They are the newest braids in that cord of humanity, and it is right and beautiful that they should know something of what their parents and grandparents value, while at the same time having access to the classic works of human imagination that we all own in common." Reading aloud the stories from Little House on the Prairie to my kids gives them this entry into what I love, and into what is part of our common culture and what we've loved.

I really appreciated this book, and I felt so motivated to read aloud more after reading this. It's no coincidence that I also finished two other read-aloud books this week while reading this book, two read-alouds we've been working on for months. I believe in the power of reading with my kids, and I love doing it, so I want to keep it up, even as it gets harder.

Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time by Jamie C. Martin

I love a good book about books, and this book is basically a long book list of books for children in other parts of the world, for your children to learn about other countries and to build connections with other parts of the world through stories. I feel a little silly even including this book as one that I've read, because 3/4 of it is a booklist, which I skimmed, but I did read all the rest of it, and I plan to use the book list to my advantage when we get back from our trip and I can request some of these books for Dane to read. I love the idea of reading books about different parts of the world with our kids and this book seems like a fantastic resource to help me do that better.

Ignore It!: How Selectively Looking the Other Way Can Decrease Behavioral Problems and Increase Parenting Satisfaction by Catherine Pearlman

The title of this book basically says it all--it provides a program to ignore specific behaviors to improve your kids' behavior (specifically, annoying, attention-seeking behaviors). You're supposed to Ignore (when a bad behavior starts), Listen (to hear when they stop), Re-Engage (once they've stopped), and Repair (have them apologize if necessary or for you to apologize to them if you lost your temper before). I think she had some great points, and I feel like I would have learned more from reading it instead of listening to it, but I don't necessarily know that you need a whole book about this. Maybe a long blog post would have worked fine. She had some great examples and stuff, but I feel like if you read one or two main chapters of this book you could basically get the gist of it.

I am definitely a believer in this tactic, though. This basically goes along with what I was already thinking about from Ralphie's instagram stories on Simply On Purpose, and I know that this can be useful. It's just hard to implement all the time. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm already pretty good at ignoring lots of these annoying, bad behaviors because I honestly don't think that my kids do those things very much. There's not much whining or begging or negotiating or whatever at our house because I never, ever give in to those things. (Except for Lucy, because she still can't really talk and is just a baby... but once they get old enough I am a stickler about those sorts of things.)

How Children Succeed by Paul Tough

I feel like the main point of this book was basically: read Grit. Because your kids need grit. Half of this book was talking about Angela Duckworth and her research, and using several examples that she even talked about in her book too. Tough used some very vivid examples of kids who have grown up in adverse circumstances to illustrate the research he's writing about, and it was inspiring and interesting. However, I didn't have any solid takeaways about what to do with our kids, other than de-emphasizing academic skills (which, I feel is obvious, although maybe that's because I've already read Grit), and focusing on character strengths that most kids aren't getting these days. And, that it's good to be a high-LG parent, as in Licking and Grooming (as in what rats do to their kids) because that helps give them a solid emotional foundation.

I feel like I should have more to say about this book, but maybe since it was an audiobook I didn't get as much out of it. And, it just didn't seem like it had a ton of information in it. It was good, but I didn't love it and it didn't change my worldview or anything.

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

I read The Read-Aloud Family a month ago and in it, she raves about this book as being the book that got her started in her adventure of always reading books aloud with her children. I'd already heard of this book years ago but never gotten around to it, but that book motivated me enough that I wanted to read this one too. Unfortunately, this book is not as good as The Read-Aloud Family, or at least, it has a different point and it wasn't as useful to me. This book seems to be written to convince people--possibly people in positions of power, like superintendents of a school district or at least teachers in a classroom--that reading to children is a silver bullet to help improve all sorts of test scores and every possible learning achievement you could want for your kids and your schools. This book is very heavily research-based and there were even chapters debating how harmful digital books and digital learning can be, and how television is detrimental to kids. I definitely agree with these things, but it didn't seem to fit in with what I expected to get out of this book and it wasn't useful to me, since I am already convinced that TV isn't good and we hardly watch any at all in our house. I thought some of it was very good, and I definitely enjoyed the book list at the end of the book with books to read, and I will be checking those out for sure. I am glad to have a copy to refer back to at different times (again, especially for the book list!), but I will definitely be skipping about half of the chapters and not needing to read those again.

Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters by Erica Komisar

I feel very ambivalent about this book. There were some points that I really strongly agreed with, and then some points that I wanted to throw my phone against the wall (since I was listening to it as an audiobook).

First, for what I liked:
-This whole book is an argument that it's important for mothers to be "present" with their children as much as possible when they are young. She presents a lot of different research experiments in many different facets of parenting/child development that concur with this argument, and I really liked getting that information that supports my already-strong conviction that staying home with my kids is important. It's important for their emotional development to not be separated too much from their mothers, and they need the sort of nurturing relationship that is almost exclusive from the mother. All of these things she talked about made me, as a stay-at-home mom, feel great about my life choices and helped me feel more motivated to continue to try and be emotionally present and supportive to my kids while I am physically present with them.
-I liked the non-religious argument that moms staying home is important. I feel like most people who are not LDS or strongly Christian do not have this view, and I liked this information- and research-based opinion.
-Some of the research was really interesting, like the differences between mothers and fathers. Our different hormones actually influence the way we nurture and interact with our children, and changing the balances of the hormones can change our nurturing as well. So interesting.

I did not like:
-Some of the stories about these moms who hate being with their kids or who spend 70 hours a week at their demanding jobs away from their kids made me want to cry. It is so common and obviously so damaging. I hate imagining all of these emotionally neglected kids and I wonder what sort of world these people live in? (Answer: the rich New York City world where everyone has to work at high-powered jobs and make tons of money.) I was SO MAD at the section where she talks about husbands being unsupportive and resentful of their wives desiring to stay home or work part time to be with their child more because they wanted them to "pull their weight" and make more money for them. What is WRONG with people???
-I felt like the author was extremely one-sided and sounded really judgmental at times, even though she was trying not to be. She didn't necessarily strike a great tone about women who work full-time--she obviously thinks that's a really really negative choice for your kid. Every time she talked about day care she sounded like it was the worst thing ever you could do for your baby, and while I definitely am grateful I don't have to send my child to day care, it seems very insensitive to all the moms who have no other option for their child.
-She seemed to basically blame EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM that children have on being raised by neglectful mothers, and blames all of mothers' problems with connecting with their children on THEIR mothers not wanting to be with them when they were babies. And the only solution she seems to offer is going to therapy. Which makes sense, because she's a psychotherapist and this is what she does. It just seemed a little heavy on her opinions and not necessarily open to the idea that not every problem that every child has is caused by insecure attachment to their mothers in their first year of life.

Overall, it was a good listen and I honestly think this book needs to be out there. Because if there are people out there like the women and men she talks about as her patients, who seriously don't know why their kids are struggling when they are with them for only an hour a day, then it is necessary. There are definitely some flaws with it, but I would read it again if I ever need a pick-me-up and reminder about why I stay home and why my choice to spend my time raising my kids is important--because nothing is worth risking the emotional health of my children if I can help it.

The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie

I am a sucker for books about books, and particularly books about reading books to kids (as it turns out). I don't need any extra motivation to read to my kids since it's one of my favorite things to do with them, but if I had needed some, this book would provide it. Mackenzie talks at length about all of the added benefits that reading aloud with your kids will provide, even long past the age when they can read on their own (even until they are teens!). It puts them leaps and bounds ahead in school, teaches them empathy and interest in the world and other people, but most of all, it creates meaningful connections between you and your kids by giving you shared experiences and meaningful time together. That is more important than improving their academic achievements or anything else, and she gives compelling reasons why it helps bring families closer together. She also talks about ways to talk about books together, how to go about reading together as a family, and what things your kids can do while you're reading to them so they're not bored, and gives some really thorough and great lists of books to start with for each age. I really enjoyed this and will definitely check back into it again and again, especially to look through some of the books she suggests (because they sound awesome). My only gripe is that I was hoping to get some suggestions for how to read books together that work for a number of different ages, because I can see us in the future trying to read together but having kids of all ages and having a hard time picking books that work for everyone. Do you just read to the little kids separately and the big kids? But how do you have time to read to each separate group? It's already going to be hard enough to read regularly (which she does address--she does a good job of making it seem possible and not a huge commitment) without having to do it for multiple ages every day. I wish she'd talked about how she does it with her family, since she has six kids--but it sounds like she just reads books for all of them from what she's talked about in the book. Anyway, otherwise, it was an inspirational read and I'm glad I bought a copy because I will want to use it again and again.

Book #63: The Entitlement Trap by Richard and Linda Eyre

I've read a few of the Eyres' parenting books now and I always come away inspired with lots of ideas of things I want to do. This book mainly focuses on their ideas for a "family economy" to give your kids experience with handling and using money but making them earn their money and use it to pay for things they want and need, like clothes, toys, snacks, and doing stuff with their friends. They emphasize the importance of kids feeling and having "ownership" over their own activities and possessions and spend most of the book discussing how they can feel that ownership over different aspects of their lives (the first half is about their things, but the second half is about ownership of values, decisions, bodies, relationships, etc.). They have to earn their money by completing their routine chores every day during the week (but other things are done just for belonging to the family). I feel like this system sounds like a lot of work but actually really important for teaching these skills and knowledge. I know I want to do some variation on this when our kids get older (they suggest eight).

Reading this book has prompted a lot of discussion between Tommy and I about what we did as kids. Tommy's family sounds a lot like this system, whereas mine was a lot more loose and we got just a few dollars of allowance each month. I think my family's system was fine but the problem with me was that I would just "borrow" (aka take) money from my mom all the time and never tried to curb my spending to fit what I had, since I only had like $20 which was definitely not enough to cover any sort of spending. I still kind of have an aversion to giving kids tons of money for "allowance," but I think if it goes along with the sort of instruction and discussion that they have in this book, about being responsible and expecting that you pay for your own things and expecting them to pay for their own toys and clothes, then it makes sense and will actually help them build better habits in the future. I feel like I got lucky that I'm naturally not a big spender anyway.

DEFINITELY want to revisit this book in a few years when Dane is closer to eight to remind myself of these ideas. A lot of them are not applicable now but will be very useful around then (the whole money thing, talking to your kids about their bodies/sex, the repenting bench (which I would love to implement now but Graham is definitely not capable of that level of thought)).

Book #60: The Me, Me, Me Epidemic by Amy McCready

I bought this book around my birthday last year because I am of course interested in the idea of raising independent kids. I loathe the image of helicopter parenting and try really hard to examine my parenting style to make sure I don't do that (although it's hard not to helicopter when your kids are toddlers). This book goes through all sorts of different tactics you can use to help your children not become entitled or assuming that they should be handed things without doing any work, or praised for everything they do. It talked about having them do chores, experience consequences, having reasonable expectations for them, and dealing with allowance and teaching them life skills. All in all, it really is a good book with great resources. I did kind of feel like a lot of the things she talked about were a big DUH, like "You don't have to give in to your toddler or teenager when they're throwing a fit about something they want" and "Don't rescue them when they make stupid mistakes." I mean, they seem obvious to me now, but I am SURE that once my kids get older and head off to school and have a lot more opportunities for making mistakes it will be harder for me to remember those principles. I WANT to do that though. And I do think the techniques that McCready writes about in these chapters will be useful. I feel like I do already use a lot of them either from common sense or from already knowing about them--when you live in a big family environment and have the big family mindset, you automatically don't cater to kids as much as some other people might, I guess.

Several of the things that stood out to me in the book as useful:
-a list of tasks and jobs that kids should be allowed to learn and work on at different ages
-how to set up appropriate consequences for actions (whether natural consequences or ones that you develop)
-the whole chapter on allowance seemed awesome and I am going to have Tommy read it because we have been debating about what to do for Dane with allowance lately
-teaching kids how to hold conversations and be respectful of others while talking to them

The thing that struck me a lot as I was reading it is that I was and am very entitled. My parents were great at having us work and not giving us everything but I DEFINITELY was pretty entitled and had the idea that everything should work out. I had a lot of shockers when I was in college (like oh yeah, I don't know how to do a lot of things, and I'm not great at managing money, etc.), so it shows that nothing will teach you like experience. No matter how well you do, kids will probably have a lot of things to still work out once they leave home. So that's a good thing to keep in mind--nobody is going to be a fully functioning adult the minute they leave for college. But it's definitely better to get them on the right track using these sorts of tactics.

I didn't LOVE this book because so much of it seemed a little too obvious to me, but I do think it is one I should re-visit every few years to get these specific ideas. I'm glad I bought it and we will have a copy of it.

Book #37: Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

In this book, Orenstein talks about many different aspects of girl culture today, and how many of those things (like the obsession with things being pink, Disney princesses, Miley Cyrus, etc.) can be damaging to girls by making them overly focused on their appearances and hyper-sexualized from far too young of an age. She does a lot of reporting/visiting places like Disney World, the American Girl store, a Miley Cyrus concert, and also shares her experiences with this topic with her own daughter. Some of those experiences were rather heart-wrenching, like when her husband told her daughter she could have a Barbie, and she disagreed, and it ended in tears for both her and her daughter as she tried to negotiate this tricky question of what sorts of influences she wanted to allow her daughter to have.

I thought this book sounded mildly interesting, and just having had our first girl, I wanted to see what Orenstein had to say about raising girls in today's world. I have noticed many friends whose daughters wear only princess dresses and can repeat all the lines from the latest Disney princess movie and I have been bugged by that overwhelming obsession among little girls these days. However, I totally am aware that it's hard to keep kids from becoming obsessed with what they want. Before Dane was born I was determined that I wouldn't get into "brands" and get really into certain shows like Thomas or Disney characters--and yeah, that happened pretty quick. As parents, we definitely have some control or influence over what our kids get into but not total control. However, I think that Orenstein is overly concerned with this. I totally agree with her about the importance of giving girls good influences and not being too immersed in the Disney princess culture. (I didn't realize that "Disney princesses" weren't a thing until 2000!) But I think it shouldn't be that hard to just say no to buying ridiculous amounts of princess gear and to expose your kid to different types of activities and interests. Kids don't have to come pre-programmed to be obsessed with one thing. I also don't think girls should have NO ability to dress up or play princesses--I remember the Pretty Pretty Princess board game, where you got to put on pieces of jewelry as you went around the board, and LOVED it (and I was pretty darn tomboy-ish). I think the trick is moderation in all things. Of course.

I was annoyed by Orenstein's tone through a bit of the book. This book could DEFINITELY have been more in-depth and analytical about the research that has been done on this issue (because of course tons has been done)--it was a super quick read and was really light on actual information. I feel like it could have been a lot better researched. It also felt like a step back in time, since it was written seven years ago, and she talked a lot about kids being on Facebook and Miley Cyrus and Hillary Duff--all of which do not really apply today.

Book #30: French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon

I've wanted to read this book for years. And I'm really glad I did! I truly enjoyed the insights from this book. The subtitle kind of says it all: "How our family moved to France, cured picky eating, banned snacking, and discovered 10 simple rules for raising happy, healthy eaters." Le Billon writes about her family's year of living in the remote French countryside and how they adapted to the wildly different food culture and expectations from their native land of Canada. Her kids started off the year as extremely picky eaters but were forced to be exposed to lots of different foods through their school lunches, etc., and began to eat a lot better.

The thing that annoyed me about this book was that Le Billon writes about her family's food culture as if it's totally normal for North Americans, when I think she was very extreme on the bad side of allowing pickiness and catering to her kids' whims. I definitely got a lot out of learning about the French eating habits, but I don't think they are as much of a revelation as Le Billon seems to have. Before moving to France, they would make their kids pasta with Parmesan cheese every night and let them eat snacks all day long and thought that it was normal that they wouldn't eat more than 10 foods. I think that is just bad parenting (in most situations) and the French approach is a lot more reasonable.

According to Le Billon, French kids truly do eat everything, and they are happy to do so. They don't fight with their parents about eating good food, and they are excited about trying new foods. It all comes down to the habits and food culture that French parents across the board have created, mainly because they focus on food being a pleasurable experience, not worrying about the healthiness of foods or catering to their kids' demands. I think this is the main thing I would love to adopt from this book. Our kids are EXTREMELY good eaters (for North Americans), but too often it becomes a fight at the dinner table just asking them to eat more quickly or to try new things, and I would rather not stress out about those things.

These are the 10 food rules of French eating, according to this book:

1. Parents: YOU are in charge of food education! This is pretty obvious to me.

2. Avoid emotional eating. NO food rewards, bribes, etc. This is one I want to get better about. Too often I catch myself saying, "Okay, you don't get dessert because you didn't eat your salad" or giving them snacks when they're crying at the store. I liked how the French stick to their schedule of four meals a day, and don't eat outside those times. We are pretty good about not doing snacks most of the time, but sometimes we definitely fall short (like church).
3. Parents schedule meals and menus. Kids eat what adults eat. No short-order cooking. We've always eaten like this. Although I think I could be better about making a menu for lunch so that we eat better at that meal. Too often I have to throw together a PB and J for the boys and give them grapes and carrots and call it good--which is better than nothing but I'd like a little more variety and not so many carbs.
4. Eat family meals together. No distractions. We do this pretty well too.
5. Eat your veggies. Key: Think "variety." I loved how she talked about introducing new types of veggies to your kids. She started with just making vegetable purees as soups and giving them to her kids until they liked them. I would love to do that too. Our kids eat their veggies really well, but we don't have too much variety. It's almost always salad (spinach and lettuce, tomatoes and carrots) or frozen veggies (peas, carrots, corn, green beans), or carrots or broccoli with hummus. We could definitely be better about introducing new veggies!
6. You don't have to LIKE it, but you do have to TASTE it. Say this at every meal. The French are really good about being neutral when kids say they don't like something. Instead of forcing them to finish what's on their plates or getting mad when they won't eat, they just insist that they try everything and then if they don't want to eat more, just take it away and say, "Oh, that's okay. You'll like it more when you try it again." I could be much more neutral about this!
7. No snacking! It's OK to feel hungry between meals. I liked how they had a scheduled "snack" (really a small meal) at 4pm. I think we could do breakfast, early lunch, snack after naps, then dinner. We've been moving in that direction anyways.
8. Slow food is happy food -- as in, eat slow. She talks about how they started doing mindful eating and how it helped them all enjoy their food more. This is ironic because we are always harping on Dane to eat faster (because he just sits and talks and lounges around a lot of the time instead of eating anything at all). Maybe if we talked about how our food tastes and showed more real enjoyment in our meal instead of just scarfing it down ourselves it would go better.
9. Eat mostly real food. Treats are OK for special occasions. By "real food" she means food a human cooked from actual fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. I feel like we mostly do this. We do have snack food in our cupboards that don't necessarily qualify for this, but our meals are almost always made at home and generally from scratch.
10. Remember: Eating is joyful. Relax! We can be better about enjoying our food and spending time together. 

I have some good ideas coming out from reading this book. However, since Tommy is going back to work soon and I will soon be home alone with three small children while preparing the meals in our house, I don't know if I will be able to implement them. Maybe I should re-read this in a year when we are out of the baby phase... I would definitely like to do these things: introduce more variety to our kids, stop making eating a "have-to" thing (be better about the "you have to try it but you don't have to eat everything"), and make it more fun and enjoyable for the kids AND us.

Book #16: Everything You Ever Wanted by Jillian Lauren

I can't say how much I loved this book. Lauren--who has a crazy background as a drug addict, former harem member and stripper, wife of a rockstar (the bassist for Weezer), and then MFA student--tells the story about their journey through infertility, through adoption, and through learning about and dealing with her son's special needs with astonishing honesty. She goes way, way, way deep into how truly desperate she felt at many stages, and shares the truth about what she really did and thought all along the way. It feels like a more meaningful, redemptive story, since she came from such a desperate background and came so close to losing everything. (She talks about one of her best friends throughout the narrative, who eventually dies of an overdose a few years in and provides a what-if storyline for Lauren herself.) I feel like Lauren's story struck so meaningfully to me because I am about to give birth to my third easily-achieved baby, and I felt almost guilty and unappreciative listening to the extreme lengths she and her husband went to to try and have babies before eventually coming to the idea of adopting. And I also felt almost guilty and unappreciative of my relatively easy children after hearing all the difficulties her young son had after his adoption--not that Lauren is writing this in any sort of complaining way. She talks a lot about how his struggles come from his experience with trauma and his separations he experienced as an infant before he was adopted. But her desperation and frustration she felt while dealing with his violence and rejection at the ages of 2 and 3 sounded so familiar to me--because I have felt a lot of those same feelings just with my normal, easy children. I have felt so out-of-control and wondered what is wrong with me, or how I am messing up my children. But I have so much fewer reasons to feel that way compared to her situation. I loved how she was so honest--she even talked about how she hit her son one time when he bit her (as he did repeatedly), and about all of the therapy and diagnoses they had to go through, but also about how much she loved her son and how much work she was willing to put in to help him.

I have often thought how amazing it would be to adopt or foster a child, but I have been afraid of it because of reasons like Lauren's experience--how absolutely hard it must be. Even though Lauren's experience with her son is just proof that yes, it is really hard, mind-numbingly hard--it actually made me want to do it even more. Because they survive, and they end up not "happily ever after" but heading in the right direction and stronger than they were before. I think this book would be a great, great read for anyone remotely interested in adoption, but also just for anyone who likes things that are well-written and inspiring in the best way. I am sure that I will re-read this someday. It was that good.