On my shelf this week:
Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood, by Jill Smokler
The Unwritten Rules of Friendship: Simple Strategies to Help Your Child Make Friends, by Natalie Madorsky and Eileen Kennedy-Moore
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert
I’m not sure how I’ve gone this long without reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, but I have. So it’s high time that book is on my shelf, I’d say. Also reading a humorous mommy book and a guide to helping our kids develop empathy and compassion and, as a result, be great at making friends. This is something I’ve become increasingly concerned with—not just for my own children but for all children. They are growing up in a world of screens and have become increasingly less connected in face-to-face communications. I feel like anything I can do to help my kids become better able at reading nonverbal cues and really connect with their peers will help them in their future. The Unwritten Rules of Friendship is a phenomenal book for teaching even things I didn’t know about friendship! (Also great for writers who want to write children’s literature—gives you some great insights for underlying themes to have in your books.)
Best quotes so far:
“Children who are physically hurt by parents, caretakers, siblings, or other children don’t learn to respect authority or to stand up for themselves—they learn that ‘might makes right.'”
Madorsky and Kennedy-Moore
“The most important thing you can do to help your child become more empathic is to help your child talk about his or her own feelings. Talking with children about their feelings not only helps them to understand these feelings better but also shows them that their feelings matter and that they will be treated with compassion.”
Madorsky and Kennedy-Moore
“If you talk about the value of kindness but then ridicule others, your child won’t learn compassion. If you talk about the importance of self-control but hit your child when you are angry, your child won’t learn restraint. If you talk about taking turns but then cut into a long line of waiting people, your child won’t learn to respect others. As parents, it’s our job to show children that relationships are about caring rather than power.”
Madorsky and Kennedy-Moore
Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.
