“Kids are Worth It!”, by Barbara Coloroso

Coloroso, Barbara. Kids Are worth It!: Raising Resilient, Responsible, Compassionate Kids. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2010. Print.

It seems to me that Barbara Coloroso’s name has been big in parenting from the time I was in University, and when I had the urge recently to go back to basics on that topic, hers was a name that came to mind immediately.

This is a 2010 edition of the book that was originally subtitled “giving your children the gift of inner discipline”.  The library says that book came out in 1994, so I wondered if the advice might seem at all dated.  Fortunately it did not, and I came away with a new appreciation for Coloroso and her work.  I recognized some of the terminology (specifically, “backbone”, “jellyfish”, and “brick wall” parents) from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families.  I recalled later that he mentions and credits her for those terms and examples.

This book is meaty enough that it deserves a chapter-by-chapter analysis.  There were a lot of good ideas, and a lot of points where it was painful to recognize things I’ve done or said in my years of parenting.  Unfortunately I read it too fast, and I’m not sure I absorbed enough of it, so this is a book I’ll have to revisit.  Highly recommended.