A practical, meditative approach that can be used in the moment to help you stay calm and balanced when your child's behavior is pushing you to your limit--by the popular author of Simplicity Parenting. When children are at their most difficult and challenging situations arise, how can we react in a way that reflects our family values and expectations? Often, when children “push our buttons,” we find ourselves reacting in ways that are far from our principles, often further inflaming a situation. When our children are at their worst, they need us to be at our best—or as close to it as we can be. Educator and family counselor Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting, offers techniques that simply and directly shift these damaging patterns in communication and parental behavior. These grounded and practical strategies will help you: • Slow down the interaction • Be more in control of your reactions • Open up a much wider range of helpful responses • Sense what your child’s deeper needs are even though they are misbehaving • Respond in a way that gives your child a feeling of being heard and still puts a boundary in place Payne’s meditative approach can be done anywhere, anytime; it lifts you out of old, unwanted patterns of action-reaction and prepares you so that the voice you speak with is closer to the parent you want to be. His concrete and simple techniques can help you, and your children, be at your best, even in the most challenging of times.

Today’s busier, faster society is waging an undeclared war on childhood. With too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time, children can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Now internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need for their attention to deepen and their individuality to flourish. Simplicity Parenting offers inspiration, ideas, and a blueprint for change: • Streamline your home environment. Reduce the amount of toys, books, and clutter—as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload. • Establish rhythms and rituals. Discover ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed. • Schedule a break in the schedule. Establish intervals of calm and connection in your child’s daily torrent of constant doing. • Scale back on media and parental involvement. Manage your children’s “screen time” to limit the endless deluge of information and stimulation. A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of raising children.

"In this groundbreaking book, parenting expert and acclaimed author of the bestselling book Simplicity Parenting Kim John Payne, M.Ed., flips the script on children's challenging or defiant behavior and lays out an elegantly simple plan to support parents in establishing loving, age-sensitive boundaries that help children feel safe and settled. In short: What looks like misbehavior is actually your children's signal that they're feeling lost, that they are trying to find direction and looking to you to guide them back on course. Payne gives parents heartwarming help and encouragement by combining astute observations with sensitive and often funny stories from his long career as a parent educator and a school and family counselor. In accessible language, he explains the relevance of current brain- and child-development studies to day-to-day parenting. Breaking the continuum of childhood into three stages, Payne says that parents need to play three different roles, each corresponding to one of those stages, to help steer children through their emotional growth and inevitable challenging times: The Governor, who is comfortably and firmly in charge--setting limits and making decisions for the early years up to around the age of eight The Gardener, who watches for emotional growth and makes decisions based on careful listening, assisting tweens in making plans that take the whole family's needs into account The Guide, who is both a sounding board and moral compass for emerging adults, helping teens build a sense of their life's direction as a way to influence healthy decision making Practical and rooted in common sense, The Soul of Discipline gives parents permission to be warm and nurturing but also calm and firm (not overreactive). It gives clear, doable strategies to get things back on track for parents who sense that their children's behavior has fallen into a troubling pattern. And best of all, it provides healthy direction to the entire family so parents can spend less time and energy on outmoded, punitive discipline and more on connecting with and enjoying their kids. Praise for Kim John Payne's Simplicity Parenting "[Payne is] like a master closet reorganizer for the soul."--Time "If you are raising children in these anxious times, you need this book. It will inspire you, reassure you, and, most important, it will remind you that less is more."--Katrina Kenison, author of The Gift of an Ordinary Day "Including practical strategies for turning down the volume and creating a pace that fosters calmness, mindfulness, reflection, and individuality in children, Simplicity Parenting should be on every parent's (indeed, every person's) reading list."--Kathleen A. Brehony, Ph.D., author of Awakening at Midlife "Brilliant, wise, informative, innovative, entertaining, and urgently needed, this timely book is a godsend for all who love children, and for children themselves. It provides a doable plan for providing the kind of childhood that kids desperately need today!"--Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness"--

A roadmap of quick, concrete strategies to help parents use everyday opportunities to create respectful, responsible, and resilient children between the ages of 18 months and 12 years -- without screaming or nagging. You'll learn how to eliminate the behaviors you don't want while fostering the behaviors you do want like pitching in around the house, pleasant table manners, managing money, finishing multiple-step assignments, taking risks, asking for help, and coping with bad news.

These days it seems everyone has a youth sports horror story—whether it’s about a tyrant coach obsessed with his team record that only plays the best kids on the team, or a parent who publicly berates his kid for not making a goal. But should it really only be all about winning? What about having fun, learning a sport, and developing athletic skills? Beyond Winning with Whole Child Sports offers an alternative approach to teaching sports to kids. It deemphasizes short-term goals like winning and youth championships and discourages the introduction of adult-oriented, league-structured competition. Instead it emphasizes training techniques and coaching strategies aimed at improving core strength, balance, and creativity in aspiring athletes, using an age-appropriate four-stage timeline, based on a child’s physical, psychological, and neurological development. Beyond Winning with Whole Child Sports provides frustrated parents with help in the form of advice and concrete solutions to common questions, and step-by-step instructions for helping young children develop athletic ability in an environment that’s less structured while encouraging athletic and personal growth. It also reveals how to avoid bullying, trash talk, and elitism.

Essential reading for parents of grade schoolers through teens experiencing bullying, social exclusion, and teasing—with uplifting stories from young adults who have navigated those experiences and triumphed. The tween and teen years are rife with intense social challenges in school, friendships, sports, and other activities where instances of teasing, bullying, social exclusion and marginalization are unfortunately all too common. Social media has only made this behavior easier and more insidious. But when kids ages 9 and up can be coached by a parent to respond effectively, manage their emotions in social situations, and recognize their own self-worth, they can reclaim a sense of their own power and develop skills like resilience, social and emotional intelligence and compassion for life. Kim John Payne, a leading education consultant and parenting expert, and Luis Fernando Llosa, a writer and longtime sports coach, offer guidance and practical advice to parents, along with ten inspirational stories in the voice of young adults who have navigated bullying, teasing and social exclusion—and triumphed. The Emotionally Resilient Child gives tweens and teens the tools to address the problem themselves and develop mastery over the situation—rather than having parents step in and try to "fix" things. This book also gives parents vital proactive strategies to help build strong family relationships, trust and connection, so that kids can be better prepared for the inevitable social challenges life brings.

Grace Based Discipline helps parents learn to handle difficult behavior and discipline problems with their children within the context of a biblical, grace-based home. Discipline...decoded- It's time for real talk. Being at your best when your kids are at their worst requires parenting your kids the way God parents you...and that's with grace. But, in the trenches of everyday life, that's easier said than done. This book provides a doable framework what decodes the mysteries of disciplining your kids with grace and will help restore hope, freedom, and peace in your home.Grace Based Discipline will help you: -Customize your discipline strategy to your unique kids-Determine what your rules should be-Base your family's values and expectations on God's Word-Discern what types of violations are most serious, which battles to fight, and how to respond to unwanted behavior-Become an expert in choosing and applying effective consequences

Whether it is career disappointments, lost loved ones, or diseases to overcome, the difficult times in life can sometimes cause people to question their faith and to lose track of their dreams, of God's plan for them. Casey Treat has been there. He has had serious troubles in his life-but empowered by God's grace, he was able to overcome them and now ministers to thousands. Pastor Treat offers 5 spiritual steps to a great life that show people how to place themselves in God's hands, find their inner strength, restore their hope, and keep the faith...for miraculous things will happen!

Outlines simple, counterintuitive approaches to raising happy, healthy, and successful children through parental demonstrations of respectful examples and child-directed activities that facilitate early independence and problem-solving skills.

A Recommended Read from: Good Morning America • Good Housekeeping • Esquire • Shondaland • Atlanta Journal-Constitution • The Week • Lit Hub • Publishers Weekly An illuminating, poignant, and savagely funny examination of modern marriage from Ask Polly advice columnist Heather Havrilesky If falling in love is the peak of human experience, then marriage is the slow descent down that mountain, on a trail built from conflict, compromise, and nagging doubts. Considering the limited economic advantages to marriage, the deluge of other mate options a swipe away, and the fact that almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce anyway, why do so many of us still chain ourselves to one human being for life? In Foreverland, Heather Havrilesky illustrates the delights, aggravations, and sublime calamities of her marriage over the span of fifteen years, charting an unpredictable course from meeting her one true love to slowly learning just how much energy is required to keep that love aflame. This refreshingly honest portrait of a marriage reveals that our relationships are not simply “happy” or “unhappy,” but something much murkier—at once unsavory, taxing, and deeply satisfying. With tales of fumbled proposals, harrowing suburban migrations, external temptations, and the bewildering insults of growing older, Foreverland is a work of rare candor and insight. Havrilesky traces a path from daydreaming about forever for the first time to understanding what a tedious, glorious drag forever can be.