Self Help

With its easy-to-grasp language and tools, Raising Kids is there for you, from managing family routines, screen time, and homework, to supporting friendships, self-esteem, and resilience. You’ll find out how being “on your spot” leads to fewer conflicts and replaces threats, nagging, and punishment with clear, effective messages that make sense to your kids.

The authors focus on everyday parenting because how we relate to our children day-to-day forms their sense of themselves, their connection to us, and their ways of being in the world. No interaction we have with our kids is too small to strengthen our bond with them, impart our values, build their confidence, and to demonstrate communicating, relating, and caring. You’ll learn how to be on your kids’ side and get them on yours as you navigate daily life.

Thousands of parents with toddlers through adolescents have benefited from the wisdom and reassurance that is now available in this straightforward guide. Along with offering approaches to address the challenges, Raising Kids shows you how to build on what you’re already doing well to maximize the good times in your family life today and in the years ahead.

Ditch the negative mental habits that derail conversations and destroy projects, and discover a framework for forging authentic, enduring, and productive connections.

We live in conversations like fish live in water—we’re in them all the time, so we don’t think about them much. As a result, we often find ourselves stuck in cyclical patterns of unproductive behaviors. We listen half-heartedly, react emotionally, and respond habitually, like we’re on autopilot.

This book is a practical guide for thoughtfully reflecting on conversations so we can avoid the common pitfalls that cause our relationships and work to go sideways. Chuck Wisner identifies four universal types of conversations and offers specific advice on maximizing the effectiveness of each:

Storytelling—Investigate the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others
Collaborative—Explore the way our stories and other people’s stories interact
Creative—See new possibilities and discover unforeseen solutions
Commitment—Make promises we know we can keep

These conversations unfold sequentially: our awareness of our and others’ stories transforms our ability to listen and collaborate, which opens our thoughts to creative possibilities, guiding us toward mindful agreements.

Our conversations—at home, at work, or in public—can be sources of pleasure and stepping-stones toward success, or they can cause pain and lead to failure. Wisner shows how we can form a connection from the very first conversation and keep our discourse positive and productive throughout any endeavor.