Saturday, 30 July 2011

The Secret to Love That Lasts

The 5 Love Languages
Order "The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman" Here

Book Description
Are you and your spouse speaking the same language? Dr. Gary Chapman reveals how different people express love in different ways. What speaks volumes to you may be meaningless to your spouse. But here, at last, is the key to understanding each other's needs. Learn the right language, and soon you'll know the profound satisfaction of being able to express your love and - feeling truly loved in return.

About the Author
Married more than 45 years to Karolyn, Dr. Gary Chapman is just the man to turn to for help on improving or healing our most important relationships. His own life experiences, plus over thirty-five years of pastoring and marriage counseling, led him to publish his first book in the Love Language series, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Millions of readers credit this continual New York Times bestseller with saving their marriages by showing them simple and practical ways to communicate their love to their partner.

Since the success of his first book, Dr. Chapman has expanded his Five Love Languages series to specifically reach out to teens, singles, men, and children.

He is the author of numerous other books published by Moody Publishers/Northfield Publishing, including, Anger, The Family You’ve Always Wanted, The Marriage You’ve Always Wanted, Desperate Marriages, God Speaks Your Love Language (Jan 09), Parenting Your Adult Child, and Hope for the Separated. He co-authored The Five Languages of Apology with Dr. Jennifer Thomas.

Chapman speaks to thousands of couples nationwide through his weekend marriage conferences. He hosts a nationally syndicated radio program, Love Language Minute, and a Saturday morning program, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, that air on more than 100 stations. Dr. Chapman also serves as senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Dr. Chapman holds BA and MA degrees in anthropology from Wheaton College and Wake Forest University, respectively, MRE and PhD degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has completed postgraduate work at the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

Tuesday, 26 July 2011

Heading Home with Your Newborn

Heading Home with Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality
Order "Heading Home with Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality by Laura A. Jana MD FAAP, Jennifer Shu MD FAAP" Here

Book Description
This fully updated guide offers "parent-tested, pediatrician-approved" advice for new parents finding themselves overwhelmed with the reality of caring for a baby in the first eight weeks of its life. The second edition features a wealth of new information on topics such as vaccines, child care providers, babies and learning, car seats, safe sleep, cord blood, what to keep in the medicine cabinet, postpartum depression, and organic formulas. With wit and humor, the pediatrician moms allay the feelings of anxiety, guilt, and inadequacy that inevitably plague first-time parents home alone with a newborn, providing authoritative yet compassionate advice for the sleep-deprived and overwhelmed. From "Going with the Flow" (the trials of breastfeeding) and "What Goes in Must Come Out" (a discussion of "pee and poop") to "Fever: Trial by Fire" and "Seeing Yellow: Jaundice," this handbook provides solid, practical, balanced guidance that will enable parents to feel confident about their parenting skills.

About the Author
Laura A. Jana, MD, FAAP, is a pediatrician and national health communicator who has appeared on ABC and Fox News, NPR’s The Parent Journal, the Nancy Grace Show, and the Today Show. She is a founder of Primrose School of Legacy, an educational child care center, and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Executive Committee for Early Education. She is an expert on Dr. Nancy Snyderman’s www.BeWell.com social network, an early literacy advocate for Reach Out and Read, and a cofounder of Amazing Me Books and the Dr. Spock Company. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP, is a pediatrician, the editor in chief of Baby and Child Health, and a medical editor for www.HealthyChildren.org. She has been featured as a medical expert on numerous national and local television and radio shows such as the Kids Healthworks series on the Discovery Channel, and in parenting magazines, newspapers, and medical publications. She is a former national chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Young Physicians and the American Medical Association Young Physicians Section. She lives Atlanta, Georgia. They are the coauthors of Food Fights.

Sunday, 24 July 2011

How Your One-of-a-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling & Real Life Work

Homeschooling for the Rest of Us: How Your One-of-a-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling and Real Life Work
Order "Homeschooling for the Rest of Us: How Your One-of-a-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling and Real Life Work by Sonya Haskins" Here

Book Description
Homeschooling parents are under great pressure. Besides trying to balance teaching responsibilities and family life, they often face unrealistic expectations from relatives, churches, other homeschoolers, and society at large. Even parents considering homeschooling sense the need to be perfect.

Sonya Haskins doesn't want any more families to give up on homeschooling. In this book she shares affirming stories and practical ideas from dozens of everyday families who successfully deal with cluttered schedules, academic struggles, sibling squabbles, and other real-life issues. Instead of learning a one-size-fits-all approach, readers will discover how to evaluate their own family's strengths and weaknesses and set their own goals for success in homeschooling.

About the Author
Sonya Haskins is a veteran homeschooling mom of five children and an active homeschooling consultant and advocate. She is the author of several books, including The Homeschooler's Book of Lists, and her articles have appeared in Homeschooling Today, Educational Dealer, and other magazines. She lives in the Tri-Cities region of northeastern Tennessee with her husband, Chris, and their children.

Friday, 22 July 2011

The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, & All Women Who Love Kids

Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, and All Women Who Love Kids
Order "Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, and All Women Who Love Kids by Melanie Notkin" Here

Book Description
Savvy Auntie is the first go-to source for taking delight in the Savvy Auntie lifestyle, based on the popular website and written by America's foremost expert on modern Aunthood, Melanie Notkin. Whether she's an Auntie by Relation or Auntie by Choice, a Long-Distance Auntie or a Gay Auntie, America's fastest growing segment of women, the PANK (Professional Aunt No Kids), needs guidance and advice when it comes to the kids she adores. Why should their parents know all the secrets?

Savvy Auntie empowers sophisticated, educated, and independent aunts to connect with their inner-Savvy Auntie by sharing everything she needs to know from the minute she discovers her sister or friend is expecting, to confidently lending a hand with a newborn niece or nephew, to keeping up with the walking, talking growing-oh-so-fast bundles of energy, while coping with the occasional meltdown—including her own. Notkin provides a wealth of essential information and insight on child development, health and well-being, and spending 'QualAuntie' time with nieces and nephews. Plus she shares tips for baby showers, baby booty, birthdays and big kids.

Notkin also addresses the ultimate concern for the modern aunt: to have children or not, and if so, how? She offers savvy advice on living life to the fullest no matter the choice or circumstance. Chock full of sidebars, fun facts, and helpful anecdotes from every day Savvy Aunties, Savvy Auntie is the indispensable handbook for Aunties of all ages, and for every single, married or partnered woman navigating the ultimate celebration of life: children.

About the Author
Melanie Notkin (a.k.a. Savvy Auntie) is the founder of SavvyAuntie.com and creator of the popular Savvy Auntie lifestyle brand—the phenomenon heralded by fabulous kid-friendly women everywhere as a celebration of modern, cosmopolitan aunthood. These PANKs (Professional Aunts No Kids) aren't childless—they're childfull! And their love is a gift.

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
Order "Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by ] Sue Johnson" Here

Book Description
Heralded by the New York Times and Time magazine as the couple therapy with the highest rate of success, Emotionally Focused Therapy works because it views the love relationship as an attachment bond. This idea, once controversial, is now supported by science, and has become widely popular among therapists around the world. In HOLD ME TIGHT, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from Recognizing the Demon Dialogue to Revisiting a Rocky Moment-and uses them as touchpoints for seven healing conversations. Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love. (2008)

About the Author
Dr. Sue Johnson is a clinical psychologist and Distinguished Research Professor at Alliant International University in San Diego, CA. The developer of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, she is a recognized leader in the new science of relationships. Dr. Johnson is the author of numerous books and articles, and she has trained thousands of therapists in North America and around the world. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Essentials of Premarital Counseling: Creating Compatible Couples

Essentials of Premarital Counseling
Therapists Acclaim for Essentials of Pre-Marital Counseling
Order "Essentials of Premarital Counseling: Creating Compatible Couples by Sandra L. Ceren" Here

Book description
Expand Your Clinical Practice with this Practical Hands-on Guide Teach conflict resolution skills to your couples

  • Introspective quizzes expose more of couples¿ inner lives and past history to each other
  • Real-life exercises let couples practice cooperative decision- making and compromise before a crisis happens.
  • Couples will discover and have the opportunity to change bad habits which threaten the viability of the relationship.

Monday, 18 July 2011

Fatherhood: Evolution & Human Paternal Behavior

Fatherhood
Order "Fatherhood: Evolution and Human Paternal Behavior by Peter B. Gray, Kermyt G. Anderson" Here

Book Description
We've all heard that a father's involvement enriches the lives of children. But how much have we heard about how having a child affects a father's life? As Peter Gray and Kermyt Anderson reveal, fatherhood actually alters a man's sexuality, rewires his brain, and changes his hormonal profile. His very health may suffer—in the short run—and improve in the long. These are just a few aspects of the scientific side of fatherhood explored in this book, which deciphers the findings of myriad studies and makes them accessible to the interested general reader. Since the mid-1990s Anderson and Gray, themselves fathers of young children, have been studying paternal behavior in places as diverse as Boston, Albuquerque, Cape Town, Kenya, and Jamaica. Their work combines the insights of evolutionary and comparative biology, cross-cultural analysis, and neural physiology to deepen and expand our understanding of fatherhood from the intense involvement in childcare seen in male hunter-gatherers, to the prodigality of a Genghis Khan leaving millions of descendants, to the anonymous sperm donor in a fertility clinic. Looking at every kind of fatherhood—being a father in and out of marriage, fathering from a distance, stepfathering, and parenting by gay males—this book presents a uniquely detailed picture of how being a parent fits with men's broader social and work lives, how fatherhood evolved, and how it differs across cultures and through time.

Review
This book should be required reading for all fathers and potential fathers. Whether a man is contemplating starting a family down the road as a biological father or buying one ready-made off the shelf as a stepfather, this is the indispensable guidebook for trying to be good at fatherhood. Similarly, for social and behavioral scientists interested in families and parenting from a cross-cultural perspective, this will become the standard reference for years to come. No matter what perspective one brings to the table--this reviewer's happens to be evolutionary--there is plenty here to make one think. It is almost scary how much information Gray and Anderson pack in this book, let alone how easy it is to read. -- M. J. O'Brien

Gray and Anderson's Fatherhood: Evolution and Human Paternal Behavior, provides a much needed perspective on men's parenting in general, as well as nuanced discussion of how this parenting varies across cultures, historical periods within cultures, and across individual men. The evolutionary perspective is critical, but equally important is the focus on fatherhood, as books and articles on fatherhood are dwarfed by a large and growing body of research on motherhood and alloparenting. In redressing this balance, Gray and Anderson do for fatherhood what [Sarah] Hrdy has done for motherhood...Essential reading for anyone interested in fatherhood and...an excellent starting point for researchers who want to pursue evolutionarily informed studies of fatherhood. Perhaps the most important quality of this work is that it should spark the interest of young evolutionary minded scholars, such that in coming decades fatherhood will be studied with the same care and depth that motherhood has been. -- Drew H. Bailey, Benjamin Winegard, and David C. Geary (Evolutionary Psychology )

About the Author
Peter B. Gray is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Kermyt G. Anderson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma.

Hundreds of Tips to Help During Travel with Your Baby, Toddler, & Preschooler

Take-Along Travels with Baby
Order "Take-Along Travels with Baby: Hundreds of Tips to Help During Travel with Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler by Shelly Rivoli" Here

Book Description
From the author of the award-winning guide Travels with Baby comes this pocket-size survival manual for parents traveling with small children. Packed with hundreds of on-the-go tips, parents get quick access to the information and advice they need as they travel, including: babyproofing hotel rooms or vacation rentals on arrival, keeping babies happy in the back seat, managing toddlers on airplanes, translating various baby items and conversions while traveling abroad, and finding medical help or remedies far from home. Age-appropriate games and activities also help keep babies, toddlers, and preschoolers entertained in transit. Plus special sections help parents organize their travel details for each trip and also make it easy to fill in the blanks and log favorite family moments along the way.

About the Author
Shelly Rivoli has changed diapers on four continents and continues to travel with her husband and three young children as often as she can. She is the author of the award-winning guide Travels with Baby: The Ultimate Guide for Planning Trips with Babies, Toddlers, and Preschool-Age Children, which received a Gold Award in Parenting Resources from the National Parenting Publication Awards (NAPPA) and was a finalist for two Book of the Year awards from ForeWord Magazine recognizing outstanding independent publishing. Her travel tips and advice have appeared in national magazines and newspapers, and she has made appearances both on radio and television on the topic of travel with young children. Ms. Rivoli continues to blog yet more travel tips and anecdotes in her Travels with Baby Tips blog. When not traveling, she hangs her hats as mother and writer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Everything Parent's Guide to the Defiant Child

Reassuring advice to help your child manage explosive emotions and gain self-control
Order "The Everything Parent's Guide to the Defiant Child by Jesse Jayne Rutherford, Kathleen Nickerson" Here

Book Description
Dealing with defiant children can be frustrating, time-consuming, and emotionally exhausting for parents and kids alike. But with this practical, reassuring handbook, you no longer have to feel helpless. You'll learn how to defuse the negativity, hostility, antagonism, and explosive anger that can ruin your child's relationships with family, friends, teachers, and other authority figures.

This book helps you to:

  • Choose which battles to fight
  • Follow thorough
  • Be consistent
  • Communicate clear expectations and consequences (without yelling)
  • Give your child some power over his life
  • Reinforce positive changes

Most important, you'll learn why defiance happens and how to react when it does. You will adopt the parenting and anger-management skills you need to make a real difference in your child's life. You'll help your child control his emotions--and grow up to be healthy, well-rounded adult.

About the Author
Jesse Jayne Rutherford is a freelance writer who has written several parenting books, including her most recent, which was awarded the 2008 National Parenting Publication Gold Award. Ms. Rutherford has extensive experience working with mental health professionals to research and write their books. She is also the primary author of several books on childhood development, including Speaking Up: How to Help the Children You Work with Who Live in Abusive Homes; and Save the Date: A Curriculum for Teens on Developing Healthy Dating Relationships.

Kathleen Nickerson, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in individual and family therapy. Her private practice provides therapy to teens and children with mood disorders, conflict management issues, and relationship issues. Dr. Nickerson has worked with the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime, developing innovative curricula, classes, newsletters, and training seminars for the Family Violence Project. Dr. Nickerson has also created training materials for violence reduction programs and taught courses on anger management in high schools.

Saturday, 16 July 2011

Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times

Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times
Order "Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times by Margaret Nelson" Here

Book Description
They go by many names: helicopter parents, hovercrafts, PFHs (Parents from Hell). The news media is filled with stories of well-intentioned parents going to ridiculous extremes to remove all obstacles from their child’s path to greatness . . . or at least to an ivy league school. From cradle to college, they remain intimately enmeshed in their children’s lives, stifling their development and creating infantilized, spoiled, immature adults unprepared to make the decisions necessary for the real world. Or so the story goes.

Drawing on a wealth of eye-opening interviews with parents across the country, Margaret K. Nelson cuts through the stereotypes and hyperbole to examine the realities of what she terms “parenting out of control.” Situating this phenomenon within a broad sociological context, she finds several striking explanations for why today’s prosperous and well-educated parents are unable to set realistic boundaries when it comes to raising their children. Analyzing the goals and aspirations parents have for their children as well as the strategies they use to reach them, Nelson discovers fundamental differences among American parenting styles that expose class fault lines, both within the elite and between the elite and the middle and working classes.

Nelson goes on to explore the new ways technology shapes modern parenting. From baby monitors to cell phones (often referred to as the world’s longest umbilical cord), to social networking sites, and even GPS devices, parents have more tools at their disposal than ever before to communicate with, supervise, and even spy on their children. These play important and often surprising roles in the phenomenon of parenting out of control. Yet the technologies parents choose, and those they refuse to use, often seem counterintuitive. Nelson shows that these choices make sense when viewed in the light of class expectations.

Today’s parents are faced with unprecedented opportunities and dangers for their children, and are evolving novel strategies to adapt to these changes. Nelson’s lucid and insightful work provides an authoritative examination of what happens when these new strategies go too far.

About the Author
Margaret K. Nelson is the Hepburn Professor of Sociology at Middlebury College and is the author of many books, including The Social Economy of Single Mothers: Raising Children in Rural America, and co-editor, with Anita I. Garey, of Who’s Watching? Daily Practices of Surveillance Among Contemporary Families.

Thursday, 14 July 2011

Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody

Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody
Order "Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children & Custody by Phyllis Chesler" Here

Book Description
Completely updated and revised for the twenty-first century, Mothers on Trial remains the bible for all women facing a custody battle, as well as the lawyers, psychologists, and others who support them. This landmark book was the first to break the false stereotype about mothers getting preferential treatment over fathers when it comes to custody. In this new edition, Chesler shows that, with few exceptions, the news has only gotten worse: when both the father and the mother want custody, the father usually gets it. The highly praised Mothers on Trial is essential reading for anyone concerned personally or professionally with custody rights and the well-being of our children.

About the Author
The author of thirteen books and thousands of articles and speeches, feminist icon Phyllis Chesler is an emerita professor of psychology and women's studies at City University of New York, a psychotherapist, and an expert courtroom witness. She is cofounder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women's Health Network, a charter member of the Women's Forum and the Veteran Feminists of America, a founder and board member of the International Committee for the Women of the Wall, and an affiliated professor with Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities. Her pioneering work, Women and Madness, is a long-standing classic. She lives in Manhattan.

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

The Expectant Father

Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be
Order "The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be by Armin A. Brott, Jennifer Ash" Here

Book Description
This indispensable book explores the emotional, financial, and even physical changes the father-to-be may experience during his partner's pregnancy. Written in an easy-to-absorb format and filled with sound advice and practical tips for men on such topics as, how to make sense of your conflicting emotions, how pregnancy affects your sex life, and how to start a college fund. This volume reassures, commiserates, and informs. It also incorporates the wisdom of top experts in the field, from obstetricians and birth-class instructors to psychologists and sociologists. This new edition features the latest research on many topics (and there's a ton of it), from expanding sections on overcoming infertility, in vitro, artificial insemination, and other tech-assisted pregnancies, especially where dad is not the biological parent, to updating the sections on childbirth to reflect the fact that about 80 per cent of deliveries are now done with epidurals and new information on c-sections as well. Sections on prenatal communication and education are also be expanded. There will be an overall, top-to-bottom review of the content to make sure all the information is relevant to today's young and senior dads.

An information-packed guide to all the emotional, financial and physical changes the father-to-be may experience during the course of his partner's pregnancy. Incorporating the wisdom of top experts in the field, from obstetricians and birth-class instructors to psychologists and sociologists, this book is filled with sound advice and practical tips for men, as well as New Yorker-style cartoons that will keep anxious fathers-to-be chuckling.

About the Author
Armin A. Brott is a nationally recognized parenting expert and author of Abbeville’s New Father series, including: The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year; Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad’s Guide to the Second and Third Years; Fathering Yout School-Age Child; and The Military Father. He has written on parenting and fatherhood for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and dozens of other publications. He also hosts “Positive Parenting,” a nationally syndicated, weekly talk show and lives with his family in Oakland, California.

Jennifer Ash is the author of Private Palm Beach and a contributing editor to Town and Country. She and her husband Joe, and their son Clarke and daughter Amelia make their home in New York City.