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A review by witchofthemountains
It's OK to Go Up the Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids by Heather Shumaker
4.0
This is another book that reminds you to treat your kids like people, a concept that Shumaker backs up with specific advice about topics that baffle many parents: what to do when you don't agree with the amount of homework your elementary-aged child has. How to deal with the Pink Princess overload most young girls get foisted on them - and the aggression some boys can hit when they want to find out why princesses are so popular with girls. Tragedy at home and in the news, tough topics and the ways to deal with them at varying ages.
Shumaker touches on all of these.
Her golden rule is "If it's not hurting anyone, it's OK" and hurting can mean physical or emotional, disrupting the group or causing someone else to be anxious. It's a good rule to live by and I for one love the way Shumaker gives options to help deal with things from multiple perspectives. The best example is her section on bullying: Shumaker reminds us that young children who bully are not inherently bad people. There is a reason they are doing what they're doing. As an adult it is up to us to figure out the why, and then help everyone involved regain their personal power by teaching them better conflict resolution and modeling compassion. If someone had pulled out that advice when I was in school, I think my own experiences with bullying wouldn't have been nearly as bad.
Shumaker stresses the importance of teaching compassion and conflict resolution, reminding the reader in many chapters that children learn by watching the adults around them as well as being told things in very specific words, not general phrases such as "play nice" and "we're all the same" and "be fair". She reminds us that we must explain many of the concepts we take for granted when we are speaking to children because they have yet to learn them. These are good reminders to have and, for someone like me who grew up an only child and did not have a properly communicative family, this is somewhat new information.
You're already reading parenting books, which means you want to change the way you do things. You might be looking for practices rooted in science, studies, and a little more common sense than the age-old "that's how we've always done it". You're already a renegade. Check out what Shumaker has to say. I'm glad I did.
Shumaker touches on all of these.
Her golden rule is "If it's not hurting anyone, it's OK" and hurting can mean physical or emotional, disrupting the group or causing someone else to be anxious. It's a good rule to live by and I for one love the way Shumaker gives options to help deal with things from multiple perspectives. The best example is her section on bullying: Shumaker reminds us that young children who bully are not inherently bad people. There is a reason they are doing what they're doing. As an adult it is up to us to figure out the why, and then help everyone involved regain their personal power by teaching them better conflict resolution and modeling compassion. If someone had pulled out that advice when I was in school, I think my own experiences with bullying wouldn't have been nearly as bad.
Shumaker stresses the importance of teaching compassion and conflict resolution, reminding the reader in many chapters that children learn by watching the adults around them as well as being told things in very specific words, not general phrases such as "play nice" and "we're all the same" and "be fair". She reminds us that we must explain many of the concepts we take for granted when we are speaking to children because they have yet to learn them. These are good reminders to have and, for someone like me who grew up an only child and did not have a properly communicative family, this is somewhat new information.
You're already reading parenting books, which means you want to change the way you do things. You might be looking for practices rooted in science, studies, and a little more common sense than the age-old "that's how we've always done it". You're already a renegade. Check out what Shumaker has to say. I'm glad I did.