It Takes a Parent

by Betsy Hart

Today's parents: intimidated by "experts." Afraid to make moral judgments on their children's behavior. Desperate to praise and "affirm" their children no matter what they do. Criticism? Discipline? Forget it. Exercising a guiding role in their kids' lives? Inconceivable. Parents do this because they have accepted the dogma that this is the only way to make their kids happy. But in It Takes A Parent, syndicated columnist and veteran mom Betsy Hart argues that this all-pervasive hands-off approach to our nation's children has been an unmitigated disaster. She proves here that all it has done is create legions of helpless, wayward, and often violent children and teens -- as well as untold numbers of miserable moms and dads.

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Unlike all too many fashionable "parenting" books today, It Takes A Parent doesn't offer any hollow quick fixes. It's an insightful, common sense guide to the forgotten role and responsibilities of parents -- so that they can once again help their children grow up to be responsible adults themselves.

How to restore sanity to parenthood:

• Why parents must trust themselves -- not self-anointed "experts" -- to decide the right way to engage their kids

• Success as a parent: why parents should gauge it by their own perseverance, not by their children's behavior

• Are you on your child's side? Why this must not mean (as it so often does these days) that parents will give in to their children everything, but rather that they will be willing to make hard choices for the good of the child

• What you should do when you make mistakes as a parent

• How to communicate to your children that you love them, but that the world doesn't revolve around them and what they think are their needs at any given time

• Why it is crucial that parents never make excuses for the bad behavior of their children

• The fundamental contradiction inherent in modern theories of "parenting"

• The all-important fact that parents miss if they wait until their children are older to impose boundaries on them

• Why the prevailing wisdom about how to help children better express their feelings is so drastically wrongheaded -- and how this can be done properly

• How to strike a common sense balance between total rejection and total acceptance of today's popular culture

• Taste vs. values: how to communicate the difference between the two to your kids when they pressure you to let them wear today's immoral clothing styles

• Why the "right to privacy" that today's parents are pressured to give to their children is so destructive

• The secret of many parents who have established and maintained close relationships with their children

• Why the common practice of labeling most selfish, self-destructive, greedy, unwholesome and self-centered behavior as some kind of personality disorder (usually treatable by drugs) is both wrong and counterproductive

• To spank or not to spank? A thoughtful, carefully argued consideration of both sides of the controversy -- plus useful, practical conclusions

• How the conclusions of parenting "experts" have flown in the face of the real experiences of parents for decades

• What every parent should ask himself about the disciplinary system he uses with his children

• Two things parents can do that will lessen their fear and increase their enjoyment of being parents

• Telling your child no: why you must, and how you can without falling into the traps that parenting "experts" are constantly warning about

• What every parent should do before seeking psychological help for their children

"Brimming with wisdom and common sense, It Takes A Parent gently but decisively demolishes the modern laissez-faire approach to parenting. The village can't do it. The 'parenting culture' is too wimpy. It takes a parent, preferably one tutored by Betsy Hart's excellent book." - Mona Charen, author, Do-Gooders

"Spend your children's allowance on this book -- it's for them." -- Kate O'Beirne, National Review

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 Steven Winfield
Hillary's wrong, it doesn't take a village. But it takes more than one parent, it takes both. Even when they disagree, the children benefit from the competition of ideas that strengthens both parents contribution. It would be nice to see a book analyze the tragedy of court ordered single parenting and endorse equal protection of each parents right to BE the parent that Hart describes. 1 parent + 1 visitor is not the same as 2 parents.