Living Joyfully With Children

by Win Sweet and Bill Sweet

Book Overview

Paperback: 150 pages Publisher: Acropolis Books Inc; 1st edition (August 1997) Language: English This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1889051179
• ISBN13: 9781889051178
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Acropolis Books (GA)
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

This book is wonderful for anyone who has ever been a child!

When I first read Living Joyfully with Children, I was single and seriously dating a wonderful woman who is now my wife. I read the book to gain insights into parenting and to become more open to the possibility of being a parent. The idea of being a parent truly inspired fear. My hope was that in reading this book, that fear could be eliminated and replaced with a joyful expectancy for parenting.Well, I was thrilled and moved when I read this masterpiece and my hopeful expectations were far surpassed. This is a treasure chest of insights, principles, and tools for what I'm now certain will be an amazing parenting adventure. The interesting thing to me is that I really expected this book to be solely for parents, grandparents, and guardians of children. But I discovered the vast scope of this book covered far more than the obvious. This is a book about living a joyful life, about understanding and discarding old incorrect beliefs and replacing them with what is really true. It is a book for grown-up children to help them understand their particular upbringing and why they're carrying baggage from their past. Reading Living Joyfully with Children helped me have compassion for my loving parents and understand that they did the very best they could with what they knew at the time. The principles and tools in the book actually helped me make necessary corrections in my own conditioning and gain much freedom from my past.I recently began rereading Living Joyfully with Children, because my wife and I are thinking seriously about starting a family. I felt a refresher course was in order, and I wanted to remind myself of the prospect of joyful parenting. I'm discovering a whole new world of information. It's like reading a different book! Reading it more than once is definitely a good idea.My conclusion is that this book is clearly not just for parents, grandparents, and caregivers of children. This book is a wonderful tool for anyone who has ever been a child!

Living Joyfully With Children

I highly recommend this book as necessary reading for all teachers and parents. The authors' shared insights into how to nourish our children's self-esteem, to honor their natural rhythms, avoid the pitfalls of power struggles and self-blame, and to practice good self-care for ourselves and our adult relationships all help answer the question: "How can we live more joyfully with our children?" I must add that, as a parent and as a teacher, I am very concerned with the increasing pressure put on children these days. The clear emphasis is on making them do more, do it earlier, and do it as perfectly as possible. All eyes are glued on standardized test scores and admissions to "the best schools". Yet so little attention is placed on the overall wellness of the child. However, as authors Bill and Win Sweet make clear, real success in life (i.e. the ability to flourish and cope sucessfully with adversity) depends on a healthy emotional core and on humane, sensible approaches to Life's many challenges -- both of which have little to do with pushing children to their breaking point. It is my hope that all who read this book will be inspired to make the choices that will create greater joy in their own lives and those of their children. Linnaea Avenell, parent, teacher, and author/webmaster ...

A book to benefit every parent and potential parent.

Every parent and potential parent will benefit from reading about the authors' life experiences in how to be a real parent. And so much family disharmony, pain and unhappiness could be avoided, if they only knew the message of joyful parenting and honoring the true Self of children. The authors could not be more right that "children are naturally cheerful" and it is parenting that interferes with that natural cheerfulness. The insights in this book are well explained in the Epilogue when the authors acknowledge their debt to their wonderful parents who gave them a "happy and loving childhood." This is the highest praise that any child can give its parents. I hope that this book is read widely for it is more than deserving of being widely read by parents and future parents, and I will certainly do what I can do to spread the word.

This book ignites a revolution in parenting.

Within this book lie secrets to loving, harmonious relationships with our children that I never could have dreamed of before I met Win and Bill Sweet. In fact, I think you have to be craving a revolution in parenting to be able to ingest these secrets, digest them, and make them part of you. You have to be willing to give up everything you ever thought was true about what you're supposed to do as a parent and about what's important . . . willing to say, "My gosh, I was wrong," and then turn 180 degrees and reframe everything you've been doing. This isn't just a book with pretty ideas and cute examples. It's a guide to freedom for both parents and children in the homes of those adults who can grasp its secrets and make them a way of life. How do I know? I went through the revolution guided one-on-one by Win and Bill long before they wrote the book. My children are 16 and 11 now, and life with them is full of laughter and joy and mutual support. Thank you, Win and Bill . . . bless your hearts.

Short essays on how to create joy in living with children.

"Living Joyfully With Children" is an easy read of short essays--perfect for busy parents. Chapters treat specific subjects thoughtfully, developing logic and principles for living, and keeping the goal of joyful living always in sight--without glossing over the work and serious concerns everyone meets along the way. The Sweets give an upbeat perspective and offer convincing personal examples that it can be done! Choose a chapter for ideas on a topic, for example: "Crying: When Is It O.K., and When Is It Not?" / "All Those Lessons" / or "The Holidays Are Coming!" In "crying," the Sweets develop the idea of crying as a safety valve, an important element in a positive life, not a negative as one is apt to feel when actually dealing with a crying child. Their deciding principle is that crying is ok for all-age children, both boys and girls. They conclude, "If following the principle results in unbearable crying or yelling, get earplugs." In dealing with "all those lessons," their perspective gained in 30 years of parenting, and now grandparenting, helps a parent today to trust the kids. Jill and Jim, the Sweet's children, were going to over 3 outside lessons in addition to schooling when Win decided for the sake of sanity and reducing the to-and-fro-ing to cut some lessons for each child and gave them their choice. To her surprise, the kids chose to give up all lessons and went to no extra, scheduled activities. After 2 years, Jill started a more joyful approach to organ, and Jim later owned a horse. They didn't drop out of society or turn into vegetables. The story is an inspiration. An honest treatment of holiday times also helps focus on joy in the chaos of gifts, traditions that must be observed, and forced happiness. "Fast forward to January 2," they say, "and think what you would consider to be happy memories, then use those ideas in your planning." The Sweets have developed a tradition of macaroni and cheese for Christmas-eve dinner, originally a kids' choice, which now adds joy to the times. The Sweets were radical in home schooling their 2 children through the elementary years, and the success of their approach gives authenticity to the principles they discovered, followed, and present here. The book is not about home schooling, but in that situation, they had more than average contact time with their young children, and one senses that it would have to be a joyful time or it couldn't have gone on for so long. A friend said he could imagine what his wife would say if he came home one day and said, "Dear, wouldn't you like to keep the boys home all day with you and teach them yourself?" The Sweets had fun with their children and still do today, now that Jim is an engineer and Jill a computer scientist turned mother. Their essays in "Living Joyfully With Children" reflect on childhood and teenage life (drugs and chores are discussed), in their own family and others. They made a conscious decision to do things for fun, and not just becaus