The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure
A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
The Right Kind of Parental Pressure Puts Kids on a Path to Success. The Wrong Kind Can Be Disastrous.
Level up your parenting with this positive approach to pushing your child to be their best self.
Parents instinctively push their kids to succeed. Yet well-meaning parents can put soul-crushing pressure on kids, leading to under-performance and serious mental health problems instead of social, emotional, and academic success. So where are they going astray? According to Drs. Chris Thurber and Hendrie Weisinger, it all comes down to asking the right question. Instead of “How much pressure?”, you should be thinking “How do I apply pressure?”
The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure addresses the biggest parenting dilemma of all time: how to push kids to succeed and find happiness in a challenging world without pushing them too far. The solution lies in Thurber and Weisinger’s eight methods for transforming harmful pressure to healthy pressure.
Each transformation is enlivened by case studies, grounded in research, and fueled by practical strategies that you can start using right away. By upending conventional wisdom, Thurber and Weisinger provide you with the revolutionary guide you need to nurture motivation, improve your interactions with your child, build deep connections, sidestep cultural pitfalls, and, ultimately, help your kids become their best selves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Psychologists Thurber and Weisinger (Performing Under Pressure) offer an empowering guide to helping children succeed. Parents' natural instinct to want the best for their children can often lead to pushing too hard, they write, and it's easy to slip into applying "unhealthy pressure." To counter that, the authors suggest parents avoid defining success in "narrow, do-or-die terms" and break down the difference between "pressure parents" (who create an "urgent, competitive world") and "support parents" (who foster collaboration, hard work, and self-reliance). To encourage "excellent performance and great mental health," they write, children should be pushed to do their best rather than to win at all costs, and parents should prioritize empathy over problem-solving. The authors pair their tips with helpful imagined dialogues and case studies on how parents should and should not respond to children who are hurt, confused, or disappointed. Their advice is timely and well-considered: "The push to perform is backfiring," they write, and "that is the central paradox of parental pressure." Parents who push hard will find this gives them clear steps to more positively relate to their children.