Suggests activities for teaching a range of subjects, including music, math, computer skills, science, history, and language

Provides insights into the recent developments that have occurred in the continuing battle over the censorship of children's literature.

If children were little scientists who learn best through firsthand observations and mini-experiments, as conventional wisdom holds, how would a child discover that the earth is round—never mind conceive of heaven as a place someone might go after death? Overturning both cognitive and commonplace theories about how children learn, Trusting What You’re Told begins by reminding us of a basic truth: Most of what we know we learned from others. Children recognize early on that other people are an excellent source of information. And so they ask questions. But youngsters are also remarkably discriminating as they weigh the responses they elicit. And how much they trust what they are told has a lot to do with their assessment of its source. Trusting What You’re Told opens a window into the moral reasoning of elementary school vegetarians, the preschooler’s ability to distinguish historical narrative from fiction, and the six-year-old’s nuanced stance toward magic: skeptical, while still open to miracles. Paul Harris shares striking cross-cultural findings, too, such as that children in religious communities in rural Central America resemble Bostonian children in being more confident about the existence of germs and oxygen than they are about souls and God. We are biologically designed to learn from one another, Harris demonstrates, and this greediness for explanation marks a key difference between human beings and our primate cousins. Even Kanzi, a genius among bonobos, never uses his keyboard to ask for information: he only asks for treats.

Raising Kids with Character shows parents, clinicians, and policy-makers how the love relationship between parents and children is the workshop of the child's maturing personality, connecting everyday moments in family life to the growth of the child's sense of values and meaning. The book explains how children develop into fine, morally strong adults through their identification with loving parents, and combines practical wisdom about ordinary family experiences with an in-depth discussion of emotional development from birth through adulthood. Elizabeth Berger, MD, is a child psychiatrist and nationally acclaimed parenting expert. Her book looks beyond the parent's response to "negative behavior" to understand the meaning of the child's behavior within the growth process, while helping parents gain mastery of their own emotional reactions as a key to assisting this process. Rich vignettes of ordinary families, along with professional case studies of trouble youngsters in therapy, make this intelligent and well-written book the essential tool for parents and others looking not just to "manage" children but to understand and to nurture their spirits.

Parenting today’s teens is not for cowards. Your teenager is facing unprecedented and confusing pressures, temptations, and challenges in today’s culture. Mark Gregston has helped teens and their parents through every struggle imaginable, and now he shares his biblical, practical insights with you in bite-size pieces. Punctuated with Scriptures, prayers, and penetrating questions, these one-page devotions will give you the wisdom and assurance you need to guide your teen through these years and reach the other side with relationships intact.

Learn to change the dynamics in the relationship with your child through the development of secure attachments. Healing Parents gives parents and/or caregivers the information, tools, support, self-awareness, and hope they need to help a wounded child heal emotional wounds and improve behaviorally, socially, and morally. This book is a toolbox filled with practical strategies and research that will help parents and/or caregivers understand their child, learn to respond in a constructive way, and create a healthy environment.

"The Lighthouse Parenting strategy"--Cover.