For a parent experiencing self-doubt or confusion, Susan Kohl provides empathy and encouragement.

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Product Description

Parents are doing a better job than they think they are. Author Susan Kohl has been a parent watcher for more than 30 years—and she knows what parents do well. A kind of Mr. Rogers for parents, Susan Kohl’s The Best Things Parents Do is a "best practices" book that parents will turn to again and again.

Each chapter focuses on one topic and contains stories and vignettes from Kohl’s personal experience, relevant statistics and psychological truths, strategies to use, and things to think about or actions to take. Kohl knows that when parents begin to pay attention to what they do well, they can do more of it—channeling their children’s energy into constructive endeavors, modeling positive behavior and discouraging negative behavior, and honoring their children’s feelings as well as their own.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #361913 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review
I am impressed with Susan Kohl’s ability to put herself in the parent’s place with sensitivity and compassion. -- Mary B. Lane, Ed.D., Professor Emeritus San Francisco State University and author of Our Schools: Frontline for the 21st Century, Education for Parenting, and Understanding Human Development

Susie Kohl’s words kiss instead of chide, support rather than divide. ...luminously reveals the wise parent in us all. -- Lisa Groen Braner, author of The Mother’s Book of Well-Being

a hand to hold so that you can trust yourself as a parent more and more. -- M.J. Ryan, author of The Power of Patience and Attitudes of Gratitude

About the Author
Susan Isaacs Kohl has been a preschool director, teacher, parent educator--and single parent--for more than 30 years. She has worked with parents from a variety of cultures and consulted for Head Start, the National Association of Education for Young Children, and the Child Development Project. A frequent magazine contributor, Kohl has written for Parents, Woman's Day, Family Circle, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Customer Reviews

Buy This Book
This book is so refreshing to me as a mother. So often, my parenting books leave me feeling less than perfect, even guilty about what I'm not doing as a parent. Not this one. The Best Thing Parents Do is a supportive and helpful guide to finding your way through the thicket of parenting. It's terrific.

Parent-friendly advice
I was expecting this book just to be a cheerleading pat-on-the-back for parents who mess up or are merely well-intentioned but it offers incredible real-world advice on how to be a better parent. For example, the observations give guidance on how to handle squabbling siblings in the back seat of the car, etc. Unlike other books that focus just on toddler or just on teens, I found the advice useful for all ages. I've been giving this as a gift to many of my parent friends and with Mother's Day coming...

Filled with positive, can-do advice
Written by Susan Isaacs Kohl (a preschool director, teacher, parent eduator, and single parent of 30 years' experience), The Best Things Parents Do: You're Doing A Better Job Than You Think You Are is an uplifting self-help guide to nurturing self-sufficiency, high expectations, optimism, and emotional well-being in oneself and one's children. Positive, uplifting chapters guide the reader through means to reinforce family connections and sharing. An upbeat self-help guide filled with positive, can-do advice.