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Reviews
Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership with Your Child by Ross W. Greene
alanaefarrell's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
rosietomyn's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Raising Human Beings by Ross W. Greene is a good read for parents of children of all ages. I wouldn't necessarily say anything really new is covered, but Greene's communication strategies offer a unique framework for parents wanting to maintain strong connections with their kids.
Throughout the book, Greene uses dialogue-based examples to highlight the ways parents can build (or maintain existing) positive, guiding relationships with their kids. He uses specific examples, but they work to highlight how to apply parent communication strategies to many different ages and situations.
The book's primary focus is how to collaborate with children to solve problems, and how to use open dialogue to set goals and expectations while also building a foundation for kids to learn compassion, resilience, and grit.
Greene clearly identifies why coercion, bribery, and physical punishment do harm. He shares the importance of teamwork so that kids understand that pitching in and teamwork is an important part of being a family, home, etc. He shares that if we want children to understand right from wrong, selfishness from compassion, they have to learn that doing the right thing doesn't always have an intrinsic reward - and doing the wrong thing doesn't have to mean there is punishment.
The biggest takeaways are the dialogue-based strategies for establishing (or enhancing) a strong, open relationship with your child so that issues, goals, expectations and concerns can be tackled as a team.
I appreciated the final chapters that address the importance of clear expectations that encourage compassion, prioritize putting others first, establish clear communication, and promote the flexibility to try something again or try something new. Greene points at the importance of working against rapidly increasing trends toward selfishness, isolation, rigidity, and the inability to value differing opinions.
The author makes clear that this generation of kids is going to need strategies to make a difference in an incredibly divided, and often harmful, world. It's going to be increasingly important that we as parents prepare them.
Throughout the book, Greene uses dialogue-based examples to highlight the ways parents can build (or maintain existing) positive, guiding relationships with their kids. He uses specific examples, but they work to highlight how to apply parent communication strategies to many different ages and situations.
The book's primary focus is how to collaborate with children to solve problems, and how to use open dialogue to set goals and expectations while also building a foundation for kids to learn compassion, resilience, and grit.
Greene clearly identifies why coercion, bribery, and physical punishment do harm. He shares the importance of teamwork so that kids understand that pitching in and teamwork is an important part of being a family, home, etc. He shares that if we want children to understand right from wrong, selfishness from compassion, they have to learn that doing the right thing doesn't always have an intrinsic reward - and doing the wrong thing doesn't have to mean there is punishment.
The biggest takeaways are the dialogue-based strategies for establishing (or enhancing) a strong, open relationship with your child so that issues, goals, expectations and concerns can be tackled as a team.
I appreciated the final chapters that address the importance of clear expectations that encourage compassion, prioritize putting others first, establish clear communication, and promote the flexibility to try something again or try something new. Greene points at the importance of working against rapidly increasing trends toward selfishness, isolation, rigidity, and the inability to value differing opinions.
The author makes clear that this generation of kids is going to need strategies to make a difference in an incredibly divided, and often harmful, world. It's going to be increasingly important that we as parents prepare them.
giannarinaldi9's review
had to read this for externship and never took it off my page LOL
amandae129's review
4.0
Though repetitive at time, overall a great book on raising empathetic kids who are involved in fixing problems and working with you. One I will go back to as my son gets older. Recommended.
marysasala's review against another edition
4.0
I would recommend this parenting book but it didn’t change my life. His philosophy is to work with your children in a collaborative manner which I do hope to strive to do better at after reading. This book is much more helpful for older children who have the ability to express themselves and come up with solutions.
bookshelfd's review
5.0
I worked through this book really, really slowly because frankly, there were sections I needed to revisit as situations came up in parenting and practice that necessitated a review.
Dr. Greene’s perspective is such a contrast from the way that we usually pit adults against the children they care for, in adversarial conflicts of disciplinary strategies that feel exhausting before we even begin. Raising Human Beings presupposes something that shouldn’t be radical at all: that kids are human beings with a vested interest in who they are and who they are becoming, whose conflicts and competencies require a collaborative approach led by caregiving adults. Dr. Greene provides frameworks and skill building to guide kids through these collaborations so that we grow accustomed to finding solutions together when difficulties arise, rather than jumping in with imposed punishments, mandatory solutions, or forced compliance—-all of which can leave kids unsure how to handle their own problems as they find themselves increasingly responsible for their own circumstances.
I wanted to wait until I had time to see this framework in action for a good while before writing a review, and I can now say that this really has been a positive paradigm shift in our family. Our kid can identify both emergent problems and possible solutions, and we’ve been able to try out solutions knowing that we can re-evaluate later with opportunities to appreciate what works and tweak what doesn’t. This model is allowing him to build competencies that parent-directed discipline without collaboration would not provide.
Dr. Greene’s perspective is such a contrast from the way that we usually pit adults against the children they care for, in adversarial conflicts of disciplinary strategies that feel exhausting before we even begin. Raising Human Beings presupposes something that shouldn’t be radical at all: that kids are human beings with a vested interest in who they are and who they are becoming, whose conflicts and competencies require a collaborative approach led by caregiving adults. Dr. Greene provides frameworks and skill building to guide kids through these collaborations so that we grow accustomed to finding solutions together when difficulties arise, rather than jumping in with imposed punishments, mandatory solutions, or forced compliance—-all of which can leave kids unsure how to handle their own problems as they find themselves increasingly responsible for their own circumstances.
I wanted to wait until I had time to see this framework in action for a good while before writing a review, and I can now say that this really has been a positive paradigm shift in our family. Our kid can identify both emergent problems and possible solutions, and we’ve been able to try out solutions knowing that we can re-evaluate later with opportunities to appreciate what works and tweak what doesn’t. This model is allowing him to build competencies that parent-directed discipline without collaboration would not provide.
joanna_banana's review
5.0
It's like this book was written for me! At first I thought he was making it sound too easy and kept asking myself "How am I ever going to do this?" In the heat of the moment it's so easy to count to 5 or threaten "no cartoons!" Or "I'll take your legos away" Or beg and plead to get out of the house on time. None of those approaches solves the problem in a way that's mutually satisfactory. The author is clear that collaborative parenting is NOT living in "Pushover Provinces" just because it's not the "Dictatorial Kingdom." It's about communicating with your child, figuring out the cause of a problem from their perspective, allowing them to come up with a solution, and discussing what you think based on your experience and wisdom of being the adult. It's important to try something that meets your values and expectations and is still responsive to who the kid is and wants to be. It takes practice and the first attempt at solving the problem often doesn't work and you have to keep working on it. I liked the emphasis on figuring out the major unsolved problems you see, checking in with your kid, and talking about them at a time when you both are relaxed and focused, not pressed to leave the house or distracted. How does it work? There are three approaches the author discussed:
Plan A: Our common default as parents, directive and punitive, solving problems for our kids. Author argues we need to steer away from Plan A.
Plan B: The collaborative approach using empathy, appreciating how one's actions are affecting others, resolving disagreements in ways that do not cause conflict, taking another's perspective, and being honest.
Plan C: defer unsolved problem until kid is ready developmentally or until kid has tried to solve on her own. Plan C is usually arrived at after talking to your kid.
I found his discussion about teachers' role to play: Academia still heavily relies on high stakes testing, unattainable expectations and punitive reactions instead of collaborative problem solving. We would do well to all work together with educators.
He also has a chapter on "parental angst" on why we tend to use Plan A: we care a whole lot about our kids and want them to be safe and succeed. That was the chapter that made it seem more doable.
Bottom line: Parent in a way that fosters the better side of our human nature. He states at the end: "The real world needs more human beings." Truth.
Plan A: Our common default as parents, directive and punitive, solving problems for our kids. Author argues we need to steer away from Plan A.
Plan B: The collaborative approach using empathy, appreciating how one's actions are affecting others, resolving disagreements in ways that do not cause conflict, taking another's perspective, and being honest.
Plan C: defer unsolved problem until kid is ready developmentally or until kid has tried to solve on her own. Plan C is usually arrived at after talking to your kid.
I found his discussion about teachers' role to play: Academia still heavily relies on high stakes testing, unattainable expectations and punitive reactions instead of collaborative problem solving. We would do well to all work together with educators.
He also has a chapter on "parental angst" on why we tend to use Plan A: we care a whole lot about our kids and want them to be safe and succeed. That was the chapter that made it seem more doable.
Bottom line: Parent in a way that fosters the better side of our human nature. He states at the end: "The real world needs more human beings." Truth.
rebelqueen's review
4.0
This is more for parents of tweens and teenagers. I’m not quite there yet, but there are some great strategies in here. I will need to revisit this one in a few years.