The Judicious Parent

This book is for parents who want to raise healthy, self-directed children.  We challenge you to think about principles of freedom, justice, and equality, and how these human rights are balanced with the health and welfare needs of others. We provide models to judiciously weave into the balance of rights and responsibilities your traditional and cultural family values; the beliefs and morals your family has passed down to children for ages, including your religious beliefs and family traditions.

We provide language and models for those who want to use a cognitive, or thinking, style of parenting.  We bring together fundamental ethical, educational, and human rights principles, and provide a framework of self-evident principles to help you model and teach your children how to think about morality, responsible decision-making, and wise choices for living and learning in a caring and loving family.  Guided by sound principles, your children will learn the self-discipline necessary to resolve the learning and behavioral challenges experienced in life. You will lead your children toward autonomy and forego developing codependent relationships based on obedience. You will help your children advance toward a more principled level of intellectual and moral development. 

If your goal is to raise children who are capable of living responsibly in a free society—a society that holds high the constitutional principles of freedom, justice, and equality—this book is written for you, and it is about you.  It will help with parent/mentoring practices that model and pass along to your children many personal qualities valued in a free society, such as accountability, self-efficacy, tolerance, cooperation, and mutual respect.  The values discussed in this book are civil values.  They are fashioned and based, in part, on the Constitution of the United States.

Although all the answers to everyday family problems cannot be described in a single book, it is possible for parents to develop a judicious philosophy for parenting by reading and discussing this book.  This judicious parenting style will reduce the complexities of the many decisions facing parents today, as they seek a better way to raise capable and independent children for tomorrow.