 Simplicity Parenting, by Kim John Payne
Sub-Title: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
Paperback Size: approximately 13.5 x 20.5 cm Pages: 235 Published: 2010
Book Description:
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 clutteras 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 childs daily torrent of constant doing.
- Scale back on media and parental involvement. Manage your childrens 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.
About the Author:
A consultant and trainer to over 110 North American independent and public schools, Kim John Payne, M.Ed, has been a school counselor, adult educator, consultant, researcher and educator for nearly thirty years, and a private family counselor for more than fifteen years. He regularly gives key note addresses at international conferences for educators, parents and therapists and runs workshops and training's around the world. In each role, Payne has been helping children, adolescents and families explore issues such as social difficulties with siblings and classmates, attention and behavioral issues at home and school, emotional issues such as defiance, aggression, addiction and self-esteem.
Kim is the Founding Director of The Center for Social Sustainability www.socialsustain.com. A founding member of the Alliance for Childhood www.allianceforchildhood.org in Washington, DC, he has also consulted for educational associations in South Africa, Hungary, Israel, Russia, Switzerland, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Payne has worked extensively with the North American and UK Waldorf educational movements and Public Schools. He is Co Director of an extensive research program that is exploring and developing a drug-free approach to Attention Related Disorders.
He has been featured in Time Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Mothering and Parenting Magazines, BBC, NBC, Fox & ABC television and is a regular guest on National Public Radio. He is the author of two books Games Children Play (Hawthorn Press) and Simplicity Parenting (Ballantine Books/Random House) and is presently working on a new book The Soul of Discipline.
Kim strives to deepen understanding and give practical tools for life that arise out of the burning social issues of our time.
(Please see the Video, below.)
Reviews:
This book is a wake-call for all of us who have misjudged what children need and can handle, and who have wandered so far from the best practices that we are raising neurologically damaged and emotionally stunted human beings as a result. Simplicity Parenting arises from dialogues with real people, from their questions and their needs. Kim John Payne is sharp, funny, and wise, andbest of allhe has something shattering but positive to say to an America that is struggling to know how to live. Steve Biddulph, author of The Secret of Happy Children
If you are raising children in these anxious times, you need this book. It will inspire you, reassure you, and, most important of all, it will remind you that less is more, that simplicity trumps complication, that rhythm and routine bring peace to the soul. In this profound and practical guide, Kim John Payne offers parents a doable, step-by-step approach to simplifying everyday family life, from the toy box to the dinner table. In the process, he reveals to us the rewards to be found in slowing down, savoring our childrens childhoods, and more fully enjoying our own adult lives.Katrina Kenison, author of Mitten Strings for God
Simplicity Parenting takes the unusual and unusually wise stance that sometimes less can be more. Less as in less frenetic activity, less racing around, less clutter. Payne provides 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 parents (indeed, every persons) 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 kids desperately need today! Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness
Kim John Payne helps parents better understand one of the most challenging issues of our timethe hurried, materialistic, competitive, highly pressured nature of todays childhood. After reading Simplicity Parenting, parents new mantra will be less builds security, sanity, and connection. And they will have the tools they need for implementing this mantra in their families.Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., co-author of So Sexy So Soon
"So many great ideas! This book is a godsend! My copy is already all marked up. It talks about all the stuff that surrounds kids--endless toys, choices, things to do--and what happens when you simplify. Basically, kids slow down. Their attention improves. I've seen this ALREADY! It gives support to those of us who question the idea of always running out and getting the newest thing--but meanwhile it has a lot of practical ideas about things you can do to make daily life less crazy. Honestly, I have told SO many people about this book already. The writing is beautiful. As a mother of a four year old boy, and a girl who's a preteen, I've gotten insight on both fronts! I highly recommend it....wish I had read Simplicity Parenting years ago!!!" - Kate M (from Amazon)
"Eloquent, Profound ... and Practical. If you consider yourself a thoughtful parent, pick up this book and see if you measure up to your own standards. You might be surprised to find that you still have a lot to learn--and un-learn. This is a book about de-toxifying your child's emotional atmosphere; about letting childhood unfold as it's supposed to. The case studies alone are some of the most eloquent distillations of childhood I've encountered in any twenty-first-century parenting book, the writing is precise and deft; the ideas, profound and revolutionary. The images--for example, of using giant trash bags to clear noisy "interactive" toys out of your child's bedroom posthaste--are practical and yet have a meaning that extends far beyond the literal. The message is simple--slow down, give yourself and your child time to think, get rid of meaningless static in the home--and the execution of the ideas is as pitch-perfect as the solutions are practical.
In the last two decades, we've "enriched" our kids at every turn. We may now have a generation that's robotically up to speed on important issues like global warming, but what is the price kids pay for this onslaught of information? Is there a connection between information overload and the dramatic increase of 3- and 4-letter disorders and syndromes plaguing our kids? This is just one of the questions that Kim John Payne and Lisa Ross address in Simplicity Parenting. The answers they offer are as straightforward and user-friendly as any thinking parent could wish for." - Janet A Byrne (from Amazon)
"Practical and Inspiring. This is a terrific, thoughtful book that all parents should read. It is so easy to fall into the trap of "more stuff" when you are a parent. There are just so many toys, books, gears and gadgets that before you know it, your house is overflowing with stuff. This book is a wonderful response to that problem. It's a great blend of theory and practicality as they combine discussions of "soul fever" with clear strategies for decluttering your home and your life.
I thought that the section on "environment," which deals with the overabundance of toys, was a useful refresher. It motivated me to take a good hard look at my daughter's mounds of stuffed animals and start paring it down.
The sections on "rhythm" and "schedule" were also great. I was particularly struck by her examples of the noticeable impact it made on kids' behavior when more routine and predictability was introduced into their lives.
And finally, the section on shielding your kids from some of the realities of the "adults world" absolutely blew me away. I grew up very much in the thick of parental discussions and it never occured to me that this might not be the environment I should aspire to create for my child. All in all a great read. Highly recommended." - Kathlynn Snyder (from Amazon)
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