A Whole Page of Awesome Parenting Resources
Our Parenting with an Open Heart Bibliography is fully annotated and linked to the best source of further information on the Web. It is designed to inspire your continuing growth as a Parent by being easy to use...please leave your comments and additions below and spread the joy with the sharing button below! (Last update: November 7th, 2013)
The Continuum Concept is my main source of inspiration and hope for a happier world. Jean Liedloff recently passed but her legacy lives on.
Michael Mendizza authored Magical Parent, Magical Child (Joseph Chilton Pearce wrote Magical Child and excerpts are used throughout), which compiles scientific research to explain how the human brain develops. One of the most powerful parts of it explains why school is so dangerous for younger humans; another explains that 95% of what we learn comes through actual experience (i.e. 5% is learned through lectures, etc, and of that, only 3-5% is retained!).
In my experience, the most effective way to heal from the childhood wounds inflicted in civilized humans: Alice-miller.com Sadly, Alice has also recently passed.
Nonviolent Communication is a technique that can open our hearts in every moment. Marshall Rosenberg believes that we were all born speaking it.
Midwifery/birthing info/advice that worked beautifully for us; Ina May Gaskin has helped thousands of births and there's even a movie about her work now!
One of many online teaching sites for sign language: babies-and-sign-language.com/
I didn't believe this was possible until my daughter not only proved it was, but that it was an integral part of meeting her needs, too! diaperfreebaby.org
The title caught my eye but I didn't enjoy the wit as much as others may: Anthony Esolen's ten ways to destroy the imagination of your child.
Parent Effectiveness Training [P.E.T.] by Dr. Thomas Gordon is a parenting "manual" written over 30 years ago and now has a companion website: gordontraining.com with free parenting resources. I found the writing a bit too scientific and the methodology mechanized, but the basic concepts are very helpful and sound in my experience ("I" messages and mutual respect). It even contains the Kahlil Gibran poem On Children which Sweet Honey in the Rock put to music.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a Vancouver-based doctor that has many differing viewspoints than the ones I espouse, but I very much appreciate and agree with his theory of attachment and the consequences of peer attachment that he and Gabor Maté chronicle in Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Matter.
Role-modelling whatever you wish your children to hold dear is the core element of Empathic Parenting.
These are my favourites of the many home/un/de-schooling sites and books:
The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg will blow your mind if you've grown up with and are accustomed to both electricity and disease. He will show you the correlations between the two that have hundreds of years of documentation backing them up. Easy to read, but be careful: not only might you save your and your children's lives, you may never use a cell phone again!
For a deeper understanding of the society that engulfs us (what I and Jean Liedloff refer to as civilization), I highly recommend the easy and fun to read books by Daniel Quinn: Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael, and many others.
The Continuum Concept is my main source of inspiration and hope for a happier world. Jean Liedloff recently passed but her legacy lives on.
Michael Mendizza authored Magical Parent, Magical Child (Joseph Chilton Pearce wrote Magical Child and excerpts are used throughout), which compiles scientific research to explain how the human brain develops. One of the most powerful parts of it explains why school is so dangerous for younger humans; another explains that 95% of what we learn comes through actual experience (i.e. 5% is learned through lectures, etc, and of that, only 3-5% is retained!).
In my experience, the most effective way to heal from the childhood wounds inflicted in civilized humans: Alice-miller.com Sadly, Alice has also recently passed.
Nonviolent Communication is a technique that can open our hearts in every moment. Marshall Rosenberg believes that we were all born speaking it.
Midwifery/birthing info/advice that worked beautifully for us; Ina May Gaskin has helped thousands of births and there's even a movie about her work now!
One of many online teaching sites for sign language: babies-and-sign-language.com/
I didn't believe this was possible until my daughter not only proved it was, but that it was an integral part of meeting her needs, too! diaperfreebaby.org
The title caught my eye but I didn't enjoy the wit as much as others may: Anthony Esolen's ten ways to destroy the imagination of your child.
Parent Effectiveness Training [P.E.T.] by Dr. Thomas Gordon is a parenting "manual" written over 30 years ago and now has a companion website: gordontraining.com with free parenting resources. I found the writing a bit too scientific and the methodology mechanized, but the basic concepts are very helpful and sound in my experience ("I" messages and mutual respect). It even contains the Kahlil Gibran poem On Children which Sweet Honey in the Rock put to music.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a Vancouver-based doctor that has many differing viewspoints than the ones I espouse, but I very much appreciate and agree with his theory of attachment and the consequences of peer attachment that he and Gabor Maté chronicle in Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Matter.
Role-modelling whatever you wish your children to hold dear is the core element of Empathic Parenting.
These are my favourites of the many home/un/de-schooling sites and books:
- For the Sake of Our Children by Léandre Bergeron, a lovely diary of life with 4 daughters, originally written in French and beautifully translated into English.
- Jan Hunt's site was developed and is maintained by her unschooled son: naturalchild.org
- John Holt is renown for his ground breaking work and magazine, Growing Without School: holtgws.com
- John Taylor Gatto was New York City's and State's Teacher of the Year and after a 30 year career, quit. His analysis of the U.S. educational system is deep and impressive: johntaylorgatto.com
- David Albert's writing about his experience homeschooling his two daughters has brought me to tears many times: skylarksings.com
- An explanation of why children benefit from not going to school until at least 8 or 9 years of age: ezinearticles.com/?School-Can-Wait---Why-it-is-Wiser-to-Wait-When-it-Comes-to-Your-Childs-Education
- An article that shares a small sampling of why Natural Learning, based on intrinsic motivation (not external rewards or punishments) works while the bricks and mortar system doesn't: lifelearningmagazine.com
- The URL says it all: unschooling.com
- Here's a webpage listing books that feature homeschooled characters
- A list of free, online, educational sites...caution advised, since they may use bricks and mortar techniques
The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg will blow your mind if you've grown up with and are accustomed to both electricity and disease. He will show you the correlations between the two that have hundreds of years of documentation backing them up. Easy to read, but be careful: not only might you save your and your children's lives, you may never use a cell phone again!
For a deeper understanding of the society that engulfs us (what I and Jean Liedloff refer to as civilization), I highly recommend the easy and fun to read books by Daniel Quinn: Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael, and many others.
