The Parents We Mean to Be by Richard Weissbourd

The Parents We Mean to Be by Richard Weissbourd

A wake-up call for a national crisis in parenting--and a deeply helpful book for those who want to see their own behaviors as parents with the greatest possible clarity.



Harvard psychologist Richard Weissbourd argues incisively that parents--not peers, not television--are the primary shapers of their children's moral lives. And yet, it is parents' lack of self-awareness and confused priorities that are dangerously undermining children's development.



Through the author's own original field research, including hundreds of rich, revealing conversations with children, parents, teachers, and coaches, a surprising picture emerges. Parents' intense focus on their children's happiness is turning many children into self-involved, fragile conformists.



The suddenly widespread desire of parents to be closer to their children--a heartening trend in many ways--often undercuts kids' morality. Our fixation with being great parents--and our need for our children to reflect that greatness--can actually make them feel ashamed for failing to measure up. Finally, parents' interactions with coaches and teachers--and coaches' and teachers' interactions with children--are critical arenas for nurturing, or eroding, children's moral lives.



Weissbourd's ultimately compassionate message--based on compelling new research--is that the intense, crisis-filled, and profoundly joyous process of raising a child can be a powerful force for our own moral development.

Richard Weissbourd is a professor at the Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He has served as a family policy advisor at the city, state, and federal levels, and his writing has featured in The New York Times, The New Republic, and The American Prospect, among other publications. He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780547248035
ISBN 10	0547248032
Title	The Parents We Mean to Be
Author	Richard Weissbourd
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cengage Learning, Inc
Year published	2023-10-03
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.