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As Dr. Sears told his children, "Your success in life ... will not be measured by the money you make or the degrees you earn, but rather by the number of persons whose lives are better because of what you did." To that end, Sears advocates what he has coined "attachment parenting," or AP, the practice of listening to your parenting instincts and being sensitive to your baby's needs (such as by quickly responding to cries; by breastfeeding on cue, not bottle-feeding on a schedule; and by co-sleeping). By having his needs met immediately, Sears says the child learns to trust adults, and he in turn mirrors this behavior by acting sensitively to the needs of others later on.
Sears says, "It's never too late to try the AP approach with a child," but The Successful Child definitely will be most useful to parents who've raised their child according to AP guidelines through infancy and toddlerhood. Those who haven't may shudder when Sears writes that the developmental stage from birth to one year most influences a child's future success "because that's when caregivers leave the most lasting impressions on a child's brain." Nevertheless, the Searses have packed in a plethora of sensible tips here for all parents, including 16 ways to teach children how to make wise choices, 12 strategies for guiding spiritual development, seven questions to ponder when a teen wants to start working part-time, and a dozen ways to boost your child's intellectual abilities, such as by offering a diet high in brain-building omega-3 fatty acids. But the most important thing parents can do for their kids, the Searses say, is to hold high expectations: "Let her know that you expect her to do her best, no less and no more, and that you will love her no matter what." --Erica Jorgensen
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
THE FIRST OF OUR EIGHT CHILDREN was born thirty-four years ago, about the time I began pediatric training. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
If You've Read One, You've Read Them All,
This review is from: The Successful Child: What Parents Can Do to Help Kids Turn Out Well (Paperback)
This book contains a lot of practical advice on how to foster desirable, pleasant behaviors and attitudes in children, which naturally contribute to their success in life. However, it has several fundamental flaws in its execution. The first and biggest is that, as many other reviewers have noted, the entire book is little more than a propaganda piece for attachment parenting. Because of this, there is never a moment in the book where he addresses ANY of the challenges his theories have faced. It is also filled with endless gross generalizations such as "The connected child will do what's right because doing what's wrong makes him FEEL wrong." ["Connected child" is his term for children who are raised according to his dictates. If you disagree with any of his tactics, you're in danger of raising a "disconnected" i.e. sociopathic failure of a child.) And "Children who are on the receiving end of sensitive parenting become sensitive themselves." Ad nauseum. Literally. The book is filled with obsequious overgeneralizations. There are dozens of little "interviews" from, I guess we're supposed to believe, patients (although the speakers are NEVER identified, making it very confusing when the sidebar refer to "our son Matthew" while knowing Dr. Sears has a son Matthew too). These "interviews" produce hysterically unbelievable and melodramatic accounts of miraculously empathic (and boy howdy, ARTICULATE!) 2 year olds, shrewd psychological insight imparted by kindergarteners, etc. Oh, and of course, the book is riddled with obliquely validating comments such as "Research has shown," yet the book fails to have a bibliography or reference section. One eventually has to question why the book ends up seeming more like a sales pitch for attachment parenting than any real compilation of advice. As the parent of a 6yo child with high-functioning autism who DID/does practice many of the things the Sears deem as "attachment parenting" to the letter, I can tell you that while I don't disagree that his child-sensitive approach to parenting does engender trust and emotional intimacy between parent and child, it is in NO way a blueprint for raising "successful" children, nor is it a recipe for producing any kinds of desirable traits in your children. There is little room for variables in Dr. Sears' tract, if any. I don't think following these practices would hurt any child, but I think that the claims Dr. Sears makes are, at best, spurious, and should be questioned and challenged a lot more than they currently are.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent guide for raising children,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Successful Child: What Parents Can Do to Help Kids Turn Out Well (Paperback)
This book does an excellent job of discussing what parents can do to help their children become successful people. It delves into diverse topics such as responsibility, academics, compassion and communication. I highly recommend this to parents of children from toddlers to teenagers. I would also recommend a book the by co-author of this one, Elizabeth Pantley, called Kid Cooperation: How to Stop Yelling, Nagging and Pleading - as a guide to the practical aspects of using the tools described in The Successful Child.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great resource for raising kids,
By Jo (Vancouver Island, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Successful Child: What Parents Can Do to Help Kids Turn Out Well (Paperback)
I have read a lot of the Sears' books and agree with what he has to say about parenting. I found them extremely helpful. Even though alot of what he talks about is repetitive from book to book (ex: attachement parenting is a theme he devotes many pages to in all his books), I didn't mind this too much...but some people might. I don't really agree with his co-sleeping ideas, but to each his own. Overall, I think this book covers many topics that are relevant for parenting in today's society. My child is not even born yet, but I think that anyone from being pregnant to having a teen can benefit and gleen information that they deem relevant from this book.
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