Today's children are bombarded with images of violence in cartoons, news reports, television shows, computer games, movies, and other media. In growing numbers, they are also exposed to real-life violence in their own homes and communities--as witnesses, victims, and, increasingly, perpetrators. Too often, children learn that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict. Yet even as the problem escalates, our society spends little effort finding viable solutions beyond incarceration-an after-the-problem approach. Emphasizing the need for early intervention and prevention, this timely book examines the impact of violence exposure on children and youth, discusses several existing programs, and proposes new approaches to the problem.
A Powerful Approach to Bringing God's Grace to Kids Did you know that the way we deal (or don't deal) with our kids' misbehavior shapes their beliefs about themselves, the world, and God? Therefore it's vital to connect with their hearts--not just their minds--amid the daily behavior battles. With warmth and grace, Jim and Lynne Jackson, founders of Connected Families, offer four tried-and-true keys to handling any behavioral issues with love, truth, and authority. You will learn practical ways to communicate messages of grace and truth, how to discipline in a way that motivates your child, and how to keep your relationship strong, not antagonistic. Discipline is more than just a short-term attempt to modify your child's actions--it's a long-term investment to help them build faith, wisdom, and character for life. When you discover a better path to discipline, you'll find a more well-behaved--and well-believed--kid.
Solve toddler challenges with eight key mindshifts that will help you parent with clarity, calmness, and self-control. In Why is My Child in Charge?, Claire Lerner shows how making critical mindshifts—seeing children’s behaviors through a new lens —empowers parents to solve their most vexing childrearing challenges. Using real life stories, Lerner unpacks the individualized process she guides parents through to settle common challenges, such as throwing tantrums in public, delaying bedtime for hours, refusing to participate in family mealtimes, and resisting potty training. Lerner then provides readers with a roadmap for how to recognize the root cause of their child’s behavior and how to create and implement an action plan tailored to the unique needs of each child and family. Why is My Child in Charge? is like having a child development specialist in your home. It shows how parents can develop proven, practical strategies that translate into adaptable, happy kids and calm, connected, in-control parents.
This text focuses on violent fathering and discusses research in the context of domestic violence. It examines fathers' perceptions of their domestic violence amd its impact on children, their relationships with children and their parenting practices. It also recommends ways that policy and practice can be improved.
Violent video games are successfully marketed to and easily obtained by children and adolescents. Even the U.S. government distributes one such game, America's Army, through both the internet and its recruiting offices. Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that violent games contribute to aggressive and violent behavior? As the first book to unite empirical research on and public policy options for violent video games, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents will be an invaluable resource for student and professional researchers in social and developmental psychology and media studies.
Parents have heard that play is a child's work—but play is not for kids only. As psychologist Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., demonstrates in this delightful new book, play can be the basis for an innovative and rewarding approach to parenting. From eliciting a giggle during baby's first game of peek-a-boo to cracking jokes with a teenager while hanging out at the mall, Playful Parenting is a complete guide to using play to raise strong, confident children. Have you ever stepped back to watch what really goes on when your children play? As Dr. Cohen points out, play is children's complex and fluid way of exploring the world, communicating hard-to-express feelings, getting close to those they care about, working through stressful situations, and simply blowing off steam. That's why "playful parenting" is so important and so successful in building strong, close bonds between parents and children. Through play we join our kids in their world. We help them express and understand deep emotions, foster connection, aid the process of emotional healing--and have a great time ourselves while we're at it. Anyone can be a playful parent--all it takes is a sense of adventure and a willingness to let down your guard and try something new. After identifying why it can be hard for adults to play, Dr. Cohen discusses how to get down on the floor and join children on their own terms. He covers games, activities, and playful interactions that parents can enjoy with children of all ages, whether it's gazing deep into a baby's eyes, playing chase with a toddler, fantasy play with a grade schooler, or reducing a totally cool teenager to helpless laughter. Playful Parenting also includes illuminating chapters on how to use play to build a child's confidence and self-esteem, how to play through sibling rivalry, and how play can become a part of loving discipline. Written with love and humor, brimming with good advice and revealing anecdotes, and grounded in the latest research, Playful Parenting will make you laugh even as it makes you wise in the ways of being a happy, effective, enthusiastic parent.
The five-and six-year-olds in my class have invented a new game they call suicide. I have never seen a game I hate so much in which all the children involved are so happy. So begins Under Deadman's Skin, a deceptively simple-and compellingly readable-teachers' tale. Jane Katch, in the tradition of Vivian Paley and Jonathan Kozol, uses her student's own vocabulary and storytelling to set the scene: a class of five-and six-year-olds obsessed with what is to their teacher hatefully violent fantasy play. Katch asks, 'Can I make a place in school for understanding these fantasies, instead of shutting them out?' Over the course of the year she holds group discussions to determine what kind of play creates or calms turmoil; she illustrates (or rather the children illustrate) the phenomenon of very young children needing to make sense of exceptionally violent imagery; and she consults with older grade-school boys who remember what it was like to be obsessed by violence and tell Katch what she can do to help. Katch's classroom journey-one that leads her to rules and limits that keep children secure-is an enabling blueprint for any teacher or parent disturbed by violent children's play.
As violence in the media and media-linked toys increases, parents and teachers are also seeing an increase in children's war play. The authors have revised this popular text to provide more practical guidance for working with children to promote creative play, and for positively influencing the lessons about violence children are learning. Using a developmental and sociopolitical viewpoint, the authors examine five possible strategies for resolving the war play dilemma and show which best satisfy both points of view: banning war play; taking a laissez-faire approach; allowing war play with specified limits; actively facilitating war play; and limiting war play while providing alternative ways to work on the issues. New for the Second Edition are: more anecdotal material about adults'' and children's experiences with war play, including examples from both home and school settings; greater emphasis on the impact of media and commercialization on children's war play, including recent trends in media, programming, marketing, and war toys; expanded discussion about the importance of the distinction between imitative and creative war play; and summary boxes of key points directed at teachers or parents. * New information about violent video games, media cross feeding, and gender development and sex-role stereotyping.
This open access book brings together discourse on children and peace from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, covering issues pertinent to children and peace and approaches to making their world safer, fairer and more sustainable. The book is divided into nine sections that examine traditional themes (social construction and deconstruction of diversity, intergenerational transitions and memories of war, and multiculturalism), as well as contemporary issues such as Europe’s “migration crisis”, radicalization and violent extremism, and violence in families, schools and communities. Chapters contextualize each issue within specific social ecological frameworks in order to reflect on the multiplicity of influences that affect different outcomes and to discuss how the findings can be applied in different contexts. The volume also provides solutions and hope through its focus on youth empowerment and peacebuilding programs for children and families. This forward-thinking volume offers a multitude of views, approaches, and strategies for research and activism drawn from peace psychology scholars and United Nations researchers and practitioners. This book's multi-layered emphasis on context, structural determinants of peace and conflict, and use of research for action towards social cohesion for children and youth has not been brought together in other peace psychology literature to the same extent. Children and Peace: From Research to Action will be a useful resource for peace psychology academics and students, as well as social and developmental psychology academics and students, peace and development practitioners and activists, policy makers who need to make decisions about the matters covered in the book, child rights advocates and members of multilateral organizations such as the UN.
