Parenting Our Children in a Changing World

During the last several generations, developments in the field of education and child guidance have begun to corroborate a set of ideas and observations presented here, which were first presented in Europe during the first third of the last century and refined during the last third. Many of these concepts, which were controversial when first suggested, are now being further developed and are becoming generally accepted by modern psychologists and educators.

The focal point for corrective child-raising procedures has shifted toward changing the interaction between parent and child as the fact that parents often need specific instruction in child-raising has found wider acceptance. Today we need-and are developing-new traditions for raising children, which will better conform to the democratic principles for family living which now define and give meaning to the location we now all occupy in the process of democratic evolution in our society.

Although many parents may realize that children cannot be treated as they were in the past, they do not know what else to do when children misbehave. Following the specific suggestions which are summarized in this book, many parents have discovered for themselves that these ways to reach children and win their cooperation do indeed work well. As this information, which includes specific methods, has been used and tested by parents for the solution of family problems, it has become evident that the system and procedures are effective. But why do children act as they do? And why do these methods enable parents to succeed?

The information included in this book was designed to answer these and related questions as well as to present a set of principles in a form readily usable by parents in the home, teachers in the classroom, and other adults in other circumstances and situations.