A Better Childhood

About the Book

A Better Childhood shows parents a way to make the growing-up years a happy and successful time. Happy and secure children see the importance of doing what parents teach them. When parents establish a caring and affectionate relationship, connectedness, with their children, both value this relationship and feel concern about the happiness of each other. Children try to do what parents ask and parents seek to meet the needs and desires of their children. Research has shown that happy children learn more efficiently than unhappy children. Then why first make children unhappy when they are to learn a certain kind of behavior? When connectedness becomes a factor in families’ daily lives disciplinary measures such as rules, limits, or punishment become unnecessary.

About the Author

The author began his career as a behavioral scientist, a developmental and clinical psychologist, after receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago. Appointments at a series of universities provided opportunity for clinical work, teaching, and research. A great deal of this experience involved work with troubled parents and children while on the faculty in departments of pediatrics in medical schools. Not only did the work provide insight in regard to a wide variety of problems of children and parents but it also kept open the door for research studies leading to further insights. Hence, this activity provided an important base in gaining a broad acquaintance with parental concerns covered in the book, A Better Childhood. Too, during these years he and his wife learned much from the lives of their own two children.