John Gray - Children Are from Heaven - Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

Marge, a single parent, began using these skills with her oldest teenager daughter, Sarah, who wouldn’t even talk with her and was on the verge of leaving home. When Marge shifted the way she communicated, they were able to resolve their issues. Sarah changed literally overnight. Before Marge took a Children Are from Heaven workshop, Sarah would scowl when her mother talked. Within a few months after the workshop, Sarah was talking about her life, listening, and cooperating with her mother.

Tim and Carol had difficulty with their youngest son, Kevin, who was three. He was always acting out, throwing tantrums, and controlling situations. By giving up spanking and using time outs instead, Kevin gradually had fewer tantrums.

Tim and Carol learned how to regain control in their family by understanding how to nurture Kevin’s unique needs.

Philip was a successful businessman. After taking a Children Are from Heaven workshop, he realized how much his children needed him, and what he could do to assist them in growing up. He had been raised mainly by his mother and didn’t really know how much a father was needed. Once he learned what his children needed and what he could do, he was motivated to spend more time with his kids. He is grateful for this new information, not just because his children are happier, but because he is happier.

He was missing out on the joys of parenthood and he didn’t even know it.

Many men who are not involved in parenting don’t realize the joys they are missing.

Tom and Karen were always fighting about how to raise their children. Since they were raised differently, they would argue about how to discipline or raise their children. After taking a Children Are from Heaven workshop, they had a common approach to raising their kids. The children not only benefited from more effective support, but also because their parents stopped fighting all the time.

There are endless stories of families who have benefited from the new insights and skills of Children Are from Heaven.

If you have any doubts regarding their validity, just try them and see the results. The effectiveness of these skills is easy to prove. As you begin to use them, they work immediately.

The effectiveness of these skills is easy to prove. Use them; they work immediately.

Each suggestion in Children Are from Heaven simply makes sense. In many cases, your experience of reading Children Are from Heaven will clarify what you already felt was true or right for you. In other cases, these new insights will point out where you have made some mistakes and answer many of your questions. Although Children Are from Heaven does not deal with every problem you will encounter, it provides a whole new approach for problem solving. You still solve the problems, but with a different and more effective approach. This new way of understanding children will assist you in coming up with your own unique day-to-day solutions.

Children Are from Heaven is a broad practical philosophy of parenting that works at every age. The new insights and skills work for infants, toddlers, young children, preteens, and teens. Even if your teens were not raised with these skills, they will quickly begin to respond to them.

Children Are from Heaven is a broad practical philosophy of parenting that works at every age.

In my own experience, I found that my two stepdaughters responded immediately to this new nonpunishing approach. Even though they had been raised with some of the old methods, like punishment or yelling, the new approach was effective. Children at any age, regardless of their past, begin to cooperate more as a result of using these new skills.

These techniques work even when children have been raised with neglect, abuse, or cruel punishment. Certainly, neglected or abused children may have unique behavioral problems, but these are more effectively corrected or solved as soon as this new approach is employed. Children are incredibly resilient and adaptable when given the right kind of loving support.

The Western free world is experiencing a crisis in parenting.

Every day, there are increasing reports of child and teen violence, low self-esteem, Attention Deficit Disorder, drug use, teen pregnancy, and suicide. Almost all parents today are questioning both the new and old ways of parenting.

Nothing seems to be working, and our children’s problems continue to increase.

Some parents believe that these problems come from being too permissive and giving children too much, while others contend that outdated practices of parenting, like spanking and yelling, are responsible. Others believe these new problems are caused by negative changes in society.

Too much TV, advertising, or too much violence and sex on TV and in movies are pegged by many as the culprits.

Certainly society and how it influences our children is part of the problem, and some helpful solutions can be legislated by the government, but the biggest part of the problem starts at home. Our children’s problems begin in the home and can be solved at home. Besides looking to change society, parents must also realize that they hold the power to raise strong, confident, cooperative, and compassionate children.

Our children’s problems begin in the home, and can be solved at home.

To cope with changes in society, parents need to change their parenting approach. During the past two hundred years, society has made an historic and dramatic change toward greater individual freedom and rights. Even though our modern Western society is now organized by the principles of freedom and human rights, parents still use parenting skills from the Dark Ages.

Parents need to update their parenting skills to raise healthy and cooperative children and teens. Businesses know that if they are to stay competitive in the free market, they need to keep changing and updating. Likewise, if parents want their children to be able to compete in the free world, they must prepare their children with the most effective and modern approaches to parenting.

In the past, children where controlled by dominance, fear, and guilt. To motivate good behavior, children were made to believe they were bad and unworthy of good treatment if they were not obedient. The fear of losing love and privileges was a strong deterrent. When this didn’t work, stronger punishment was given to generate even more fear and to break the will of a child. An unruly child was often called strong-willed. Ironically, from the perspective of positive parenting, nurturing a strong will is the basis of creating confidence, cooperation, and compassion in children.

Nurturing and not breaking a child’s will is

the basis of creating confidence, cooperation,

and compassion in children.

Past parenting approaches sought to create obedient children. The goal of positive parenting is to create strong-willed but cooperative children. A child’s will doesn’t have to be broken in order to create cooperation. Children are from heaven. When their hearts are open and their will is nurtured, they actually are more willing to cooperate.

The goal of positive parenting is to create

willful but cooperative children.

Past parenting approaches were aimed at creating good children. Positive parenting creates compassionate children, who don’t have to be threatened to follow rules, but spontaneously act and make decisions from an open heart. They do not lie or cheat because it is against the rules, but they are fair and just. Morality is not imposed on these children from outside, but emerges from within and is learned by cooperating with their parents.