Unconditional Parenting

Those of you who know me best are well aware of my obsession with parenting books. I think it's probably safe to say I am, in fact, a parenting book junkie. If it was written in the last five to ten years and it doesn't condone child beating or involve "raising a good Christian" or have a title that includes the phrase "Three Easy Steps," then I have probably read it. That's a LOT of parenting books people.

Now out of all those, there are only two that really stand out as superb. Granted I'm only three years into child rearing so this list will likely (and hopefully) branch out. For example, I can think of a few that were excellent but only targeted to parents of girls or parents of adolescents.

Some of you (Becca) will not be surprised to hear Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson is at the top of the list. I've already touched on this book a little bit in an earlier post so I am not going to go into any great detail about it here except to say it's an excellent place to start if you are a new and/or expecting parent.

My other parenting bible, which I only recently discovered and then wondered why I'd never heard of before, is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. In the past few days, I tried to write a review of this book no less than three times. And each time I felt I wasn't doing it justice. I also had a hard time explaining the premise of the book without making it sound wishy-washy. So rather than giving it another go...I suggest you take a look at the book jacket and book reviews available on Kohn's website and at Amazon. This book goes very well with the positive discipline philosophy. In fact, you'd do yourself a big favor by reading Kohn's book first and then referring to Jane Nelson's books for some ideas how to implement unconditional parenting in your home.

While I myself am by no means a parenting expert, I'm pleased to say both these books come highly recommended by all sorts of people involved in early childhood education and development. I was also pleasantly surprised to see they are both on the reading list at M's preschool. Which confirms my sneaking suspicion that I am, in fact, a brilliant mother.