my-goodnessMy Goodness: My Kids by Nesta A. Aharoni

published: April 1, 2008 by Grassroots Publishing Group, Inc.

From back:

Raise good kids and save the world! Kids who are raised to be good—above and beyond any other characteristic—mature into adults who display honor and integrity in their daily lives. Children who value goodness don’t cheat on a test to get into the college of their choice. They don’t steal candy from the grocery or grow into adults who steal office supplies from the workplace. They treat others with respect and kindness, and they don’t hurt innocent people through violence, manipulation, or cruelty.

My thoughts:

Aharoni doesn’t claim to be an expert on child-rearing, but she is a mom who raised three kids, devoping ideas and strategies along the way. The book is divided into 30 chapters, each dealing with some aspect of raising children, like punishment, food and friends. These chapters have good solid advice in them and would definitely be helpful to people trying to raise good children in a world that sometimes makes it tough.

It was nice for me to see that we do several of the things Aharoni mentioned. For example, she encouraged helping around the house, but not having assigned “chores” for her children. We work in a similar way. I truly believe Amber cleans her room better than she would if it were a “chore,” and when we need to clean up for company or just because things have gotten out of control, she jumps right in and never complains about helping. She also likes to dust which is good, since I hate it. Also, we don’t paying for grades, we try to talk to her friends and we are, I believe,  giving her a good basis in one religion. I hope that we also praise her appropriately and allow and encourage her to pursue a variety of interests.

I think a lot of Aharoni’s book has to do with treating kids like people, like participating family members. There are definitely some ideas I will try to utilize  in t he future. One is teaching Amber to argue, not based solely on feelings, but on reasonable well-formed arguments, with supporting facts, and to accept other people arguing back, reasonably. Discussing a variety of issues and respecting other people, even if they disagree, is a trait I want her to learn. Another is the advice to begin talking about sex and drugs early, so that by the time she hears about it on the playground, it won’t be news. This is a hard one for me, but I’m going to make an effort.

My rating is 3.5/5. I think there is a lot of good common-sense advice, but I don’t think much of it is really new.

Other information:

You can purchase My Goodness: My Kids here.

Also, to learn more about Aharoni and the National Goodness Movement, please visit Grassroots Publishing, Inc.

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