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Practical Wisdom for Parents  |
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Parents of young children, this is a book for you: Practical Wisdom for Parents: Raising Self-Confident Children in the Preschool Years by Nancy Schulman and Ellen Birnbaum.
The target audience of this book is parents of children ages three and four who are entering pre-school programs, but it’s also a good read-ahead resource for parents of children younger than three because it won’t be long before their children are that this stage.
A how-to book on parenting wouldn’t have much credence if it wasn’t written by someone who has raised children or worked closely with them. Schulman and Birnbaum have done both and their years of experience permeate the advice they offer, giving their readers a trustworthy foundation their advice stems from.
Practical Wisdom for Parents is intended to be used as a guide and not read straight through. A lot of the information is repeated in sections where themes overlap so the straight read-through is not necessary. Parents can pick and choose their topic from the table of contents broken out into outline form connecting readers quickly to the advice they seek.
The book is broken up into two main sections. The first section is titled School and Schulman and Birnbaum provide a detailed inventory of what parents face during all phases of their child’s pre-school experience. Schulman and Birnbaum are co-directors of a nursery school in New York City so their insight into the search and decision process parents experience signing their children up for pre-school is invaluable. The authors also provide a behind-the-scenes viewpoint of how schools choose their students. Each section offers parents the kinds of questions they should ask the school representatives, how they should present themselves, and realistic approaches parents should take when searching for the desired pre-school for their child.
Finding the school and entering a child in a pre-school program is one aspect of the experience. The other is recommended parenting practices when school is in session. Again Schulman and Birnbaum discuss all aspects of the school schedule that parents should keep in mind for home use, not simply in school. Topics from separation to developmental benchmarks, behavior issues to overscheduling are all discussed in detail with Schulman and Birnbaum’s practical wisdom offered as a guide to parents of any situation.
The school section concludes with advice on preparing your child for Kindergarten: the next phase of their young lives.
The second section of the book is called Home. This section covers all aspects of parenting from family relationships to discipline, promoting playtime to prioritizing family togetherness. Again, all of the advice is keeping in mind a child who is at the understanding of a three and four year old.
The entire book is full of tips that are incorporated into bulleted lists that allow for quick perusal. Busy parents will appreciate the quick tips that they can consider incorporating into their family’s lives.
There are countless situations parents will face as they raise their children and while Schulman and Birnbaum attempt to cover many common ones, their advice is generalized; it’s impossible to write a book addressing every issue.
One surprising section that is missing is the subject of encouraging children to read books. Schulman and Birnbaum discuss the importance of limiting TV, movie and computer time, and true children at this age can’t read but the authors don’t discuss the benefits of reading to your child and giving them books they can explore. Each section of the book ends with a list of recommended reading for parents and or children, but that’s the closest they come to the subject.
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