Canadian children are safer now than at any other time in history. So why are we so fearful for them? When they’re young, we drive them to playdates, fill up their time with organized activity, and cocoon them from every imaginable peril. We think we are doing what’s best for them. But as they grow into young adults and we continue to manage their lives, running interference with teachers and coaches, we are, in fact, unwittingly stunting them. Internationally respected social worker and family therapist Michael Ungar tells us why our mania to keep our kids safe is causing us to do the opposite: put them in harm’s way. By continuing to protect them from failure and disappointment, many of our kids are missing out on the “risk-taker’s advantage,” the benefits that come from experiencing manageable amounts of danger. In Too Safe for Their Own Good, Ungar inspires parents to recall their own childhoods and the lessons they learned from being risk-takers and responsibility-seekers, much to the annoyance of their own parents. He offers the support parents need in setting appropriate limits and provides concrete suggestions for allowing children the opportunity to experience the rites of passage that will help them become competent, happy, thriving adults. In many communities, we are failing miserably doing much more than keeping our children vacuum-safe. They are not getting the experiences they need to grow up well. An entire generation of children from middle class homes, in downtown row houses, apartment blocks, and copycat suburbs, whose good fortune it is to have sidewalks and neighbourhood watch programs, crossing guards, and playground monitors, are not being provided with the opportunities they need to learn how to navigate their way through life’s challenges. We don’t intend any harm. Quite the contrary. In our mania to provide emotional life jackets around our kids, helmets and seatbelts, approved playground equipment, after-school supervision, an endless stream of evening programming, and no place to hang out but the tiled flooring of our local mall, we parents are accidentally creating a generation of youth who are not ready for life. Our children are too safe for their own good. —From Too Safe for Their Own Good

A fresh, powerful and practical guide to help concerned parents set appropriate limits on their children while still giving them the opportunity to experience those rites of passage that will allow them to become happy, competent adults.

Adults often try to create a risk-free environment for children, but this can reduce their opportunities to manage their own risk, making it difficult for them to learn how to judge new situations. This practical guide shows how adults can share their own skills with young children and promote understanding of safety within an interesting learning environment.The first edition made a huge contribution to the debate around children and risk. Over ten years later, this new edition thoroughly re-examines the issues of the first edition and assesses recent developments such as risk-benefit analysis and the importance of outdoor experiences.Written for the full range of practitioners involved with children, it will support them to take the middle path of offering enough challenge to benefit children, while avoiding the extremes of over-protection or careless practice.

Most children, especially children on the autism spectrum, accept adults' friendliness at face value. Sometimes it can have tragic consequences. Written by a Deputy Sheriff, this book is credited with foiling at least 22 stranger abductions. Characters Bobby and Mandee explain stranger danger in a way that is accessible, but not frightening, for children. Read it to your child and role-play different scenarios. Create a password only you and your child know, label backpacks on the inside (so strangers won't know your name). Strangers can be men or women, old or young. Adults should not touch, give gifts to, or ask for help from children. If they do, don't keep it a secret! Tell an adult! Arm your child with the knowledge that may save his or her life.

Here's a thoughtful, probing exploration of why Christians get stuck in the place of complacency, dryness, and tedium -- and how to move on to new levels of spiritual passion! Buchanan shows how the majority of Christians begin their spiritual journey with excitement and enthusiasm -- only to get bogged down in a "borderland" -- an in-between space beyond the "old life" but short of the abundant, adventurous existence promised by Jesus. Citing Jonah, he examines the problem of "borderland living" -- where doubt, disappointment, guilt, and wonderlessness keep people in a quagmire of mediocrity -- then offers solutions ... effective ways to get unstuck and move into a bold, unpredictable, exhilarating walk with Christ. Inspired writing!

INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER “Witty and macabre.”—Caroline Kepnes "Slick and chilling."—Megan Miranda “A perfect summer book.”—NPR USA Today bestselling author Samantha Downing is back with her latest sneaky thriller set at a prestigious private school—complete with interfering parents, overeager students, and one teacher who just wants to teach them all a lesson… Teddy Crutcher has won Teacher of the Year at the elite Belmont Academy, home to the best and brightest. He says his wife couldn’t be more proud—though no one has seen her in a while. Teddy really can’t be bothered with a few mysterious deaths on campus that are looking more and more like murder, or with the student digging a little too deep into Teddy’s personal life. His main focus is pushing these kids to their full academic potential. All he wants is for his colleagues—and the endlessly meddlesome parents—to stay out of his way. If not, well, they’ll get what they deserve. It’s really too bad that sometimes excellence comes at such a high cost.

This women's history classic brilliantly exposed the constraints imposed on women in the name of science and exposes the myths used to control them. Since the the nineteenth century, professionals have been invoking scientific expertise to prescribe what women should do for their own good. Among the experts’ diagnoses and remedies: menstruation was an illness requiring seclusion; pregnancy, a disabling condition; and higher education, a threat to long-term health of the uterus. From clitoridectomies to tame women’s behavior in the nineteenth century to the censure of a generation of mothers as castrators in the 1950s, doctors have not hesitated to intervene in women’s sexual, emotional, and maternal lives. Even domesticity, the most popular prescription for a safe environment for woman, spawned legions of “scientific” experts. Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English has never lost faith in science itself, butinsist that we hold those who interpret it to higher standards. Women are entering the medical and scientific professions in greater numbers but as recent research shows, experts continue to use pseudoscience to tell women how to live. For Her Own Good provides today’s readers with an indispensable dose of informed skepticism.