As parents, we love coddling our children.
For example, when our kids want to try the high slide alone, we hold their hands all the way down.
When they insist on dressing themselves, we step in to help them go faster.
When they want to pour their own milk, we grab it and do it for them.
But when our overdoing becomes more than coddling, we inadvertently prevent our children from gaining a sense of independence. So how do we encourage kids to develop this skillset, while we also gain a better understanding the limitations of our “parenting”?
We read.
Check out our July booklist for titles that will teach you and your kids about self-esteem, failure, success, and confidence.
Recommendations for Children
Flight School
by Lita Judge
A persevering penguin is determined to fly in this adorably inspiring picture book from the creator of Red Hat and Red Sled.
Although little Penguin has the soul of an eagle, his body wasn’t built to soar. But Penguin has an irrepressible spirit, and he adamantly follows his dreams to flip, flap, fly! Even if he needs a little help with the technical parts, this penguin is ready to live on the wind.
The Most Magnificent Thing
Award-winning author and illustrator Ashley Spires has created a charming picture book about an unnamed girl and her very best friend, who happens to be a dog. The girl has a wonderful idea. “She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. For the early grades’ exploration of character education, this funny book offers a perfect example of the rewards of perseverance and creativity.
Ladybug Girl Series
by David Soman and Jacky Davis
In the New York Times bestselling Ladybug Girl series, which encourages independence and creative play, and celebrates imagination for every preschool child!
When Lulu puts on her ladybug costume, she becomes Ladybug Girl, a superhero who uses her imagination to have adventures right in her own backyard. Her dog, Bingo the basset hound, is always by her side and the two prove that they are not too little to explore nature, build forts, and make their own big fun.
I Don’t Want To Go To School
by Lula Bell and Brian Fitzgerald
It’s Mouse’s first day of school. It’s Dinosaur’s first day of school. As each of them get ready for the first day of school, they definitely DON’T want to go! But when class begins, there is a very big surprise! A reassuring tale for those first-day-of-school jitters.
It’s Mouse’s first day of school, and she is so nervous. She can’t eat her cereal, and she wonders what the children will be like. And it’s Dinosaur’s first day of school, too! He is so nervous that he can’t eat his toast. He is afraid that the teacher won’t like him. And the school looks so scary! But when Mouse and Dinosaur arrive at school, they’re both in for a big, happy surprise!
A Little SPOT of Confidence
by Diane Alber
Confidence plays an important role in a child’s future happiness, health, and success. Confident children are better equipped to deal with peer pressure, challenges, and negative emotions. A little SPOT of Confidence is a story that uses an orange spot to help a child visual there confidence spot growing or shrinking. It shows a child real-world situations on how they can grow their confidence SPOT.
Recommendations for Parents
How to Raise Successful People
The godmother of Silicon Valley, legendary teacher, and mother of a superfamily shares her tried-and-tested methods for raising happy, healthy, successful children using trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness: TRICK. Wojcicki’s methods are the opposite of helicopter parenting. As we face an epidemic of parental anxiety, Woj is here to say: relax. Talk to infants as if they are adults. Allow teenagers to pick projects that relate to the real world and their own passions, and let them figure out how to complete them. Above all, let your child lead.
Social Skills for Kids
In Social Skills for Kids, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how social skills develop in children and what you can do to support their growth. In this book, you’ll find games to encourage them in group settings, activities that you (or another caregiver) can do alone with your child, and ways to make the most of virtual interactions for social skill development.
The Gift of Failure
Modern parenting is defined by an unprecedented level of overprotectiveness: parents who rush to school at the whim of a phone call to deliver forgotten assignments, who challenge teachers on report card disappointments, mastermind children’s friendships, and interfere on the playing field. As teacher and writer Jessica Lahey explains, even though these parents see themselves as being highly responsive to their children’s well-being, they aren’t giving them the chance to experience failure—or the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems.
The Yes Brain
by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
In The Yes Brain, the authors give parents skills, scripts, and activities to bring kids of all ages into the beneficial “yes” state. You’ll learn
• the four fundamentals of the Yes Brain—balance, resilience, insight, and empathy—and how to strengthen them
• the key to knowing when kids need a gentle push out of a comfort zone vs. needing the “cushion” of safety and familiarity
• strategies for navigating away from negative behavioral and emotional states (aggression and withdrawal) and expanding your child’s capacity for positivity
The Yes Brain is an essential tool for nurturing positive potential and keeping your child’s inner spark glowing and growing strong.
The 4 Habits of Raising Joy-Filled Kids
by Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey
Joy-filled kids aren’t always happy kids, but they do know how to work for and wait for what is truly satisfying in life. In The Four Habits of Raising Joy-Filled Kids you will discover a tool box full of skills that you can use with your children to help them grow in maturity and live with greater joy.
These tools help your kids, from infants to teens, build skills like:
Regulating upset emotions so they can return to joy.
Forming a stable identity that doesn’t change with each new emotion.
Developing discernment to distinguish between what is satisfying and what is only temporarily pleasurable.
Discovering heart values and not just living to please others.
Building “joy bonds” rather than “fear bonds.”
