Talk With Your Kids - 9781579129484

A guide for parents to help their children better understand the world around them by helping them think through the questions they face regarding friendship, fairness, privileges, honesty, and 105 other character-building issues

Would you rather your child be smart or good? Many families and almost all schools spend the majority of time developing children academically. While useful, academic achievement is not the only important aspect of raising a child. Educator Michael Parker maintains that noncognitive skills are just as important to a child's success, and that the main way children learn these skills is from their parents.

Talk with Your Kids prompts thoughtful and effective discussion between parents and children by posing 109 open-ended questions. Many of the questions reflect situations immediately relevant to kids, such as cyber-bullying, cheating in school or in sports, accepting differences, illegal music downloads, what defines lying, and making choices about drugs and sex.

Other questions ask kids to consider larger dilemmas, such as medical ethics and medical testing, declaring war, crime and punishment, eating meat, and more. Parker also offers suggestions to parents on how to keep the conversations going and encourage kids to think more deeply about an issue. Throughout the book are questions based on the theories of famous ethicists and philosophers, including John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Best-selling parenting books such as How Children Succeed and Nurtureshock emphasize the importance of strong values in a child. The conversations in Talk with Your Kids help parents achieve this goal.