Family Psychology

In The Optimistic Child, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman offers parents, teachers, and coaches a well-validated program to prevent depression in children. In a 30-year study, Seligman and his colleagues discovered the link between pessimism-dwelling on the most catastrophic cause of any setback-and depression. Seligman shows adults how to teach children the skills of optimism that can help them combat depression, achieve more on the playing field and at school, and improve their physical health.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.

In this updated second edition, available only as an audiobook, Randye Kaye tells listeners, in the introduction and epilogue, about what happened in the decade after the initial release of Ben Behind His Voices. Yes, Ben is still here, still living real-life "Chutes and Ladders". When we first meet Ben, he's a sweet, intelligent, seemingly well-adjusted youngster. Fast forward to his teenage years and Ben's life has spun out of control. He's swept along by an illness over which he has no control—one that results in homelessness, hospitalizations, and finally a diagnosis.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their 12 children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Behind closed doors, families can harbor deep dysfunction and emotional abuse, leaving individuals feeling trapped and powerless. In 'Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming Family Triangulation and Emotional Abuse,' Melanie Armijo sheds light on the insidious ways that triangulation can be used to manipulate communication and create conflict within families. By examining real-life case studies and drawing on the latest research in psychology, the author provides a comprehensive guide to recognizing and addressing this type of abuse. With practical strategies for breaking the cycle of dysfunction ...

Combining cutting-edge research with broad anecdotal evidence from her work as a clinical psychologist to illustrate just how invaluable spirituality is to a child's mental and physical health, Miller translates these findings into practical advice for parents, giving them concrete ways to develop and encourage their children's - as well as their own - well-being. In this provocative, conversation-starting book, Dr. Miller presents us with a pioneering new way to think about parenting our modern youth.

The New York Times best-selling author of Untangled presents an urgently needed guide to the alarming increase in anxiety and stress experienced by girls from elementary school through college.

Since its first publication in 1983, Surviving Schizophrenia has become the standard reference book on the disease that has helped thousands of patients, their families, and mental health professionals alike. In clear language, this much-praised and important book describes the nature, causes, symptoms, treatment, and course of schizophrenia, and explores living with it from both the patient’s and the family’s point of view.

For almost 30 years, Susan Burton hid her obsession with food and the secret life of compulsive eating and starving that dominated her adolescence. This is the relentlessly honest, fiercely intelligent story of living with both anorexia and binge-eating disorder, moving past her shame, and learning to tell her secret.

Sleepless nights, wailing babies, and defiant toddlers - these are universal issues for new parents. Now beloved pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton and his esteemed colleague, the child psychiatrist Joshua Sparrow, come to the rescue with these highly effective and affordable guides.

Parenting Champions is a book designed to help parents of competitive children/teens learn how they can be better mental coaches for their children. Parents are the first and most important mental coach a child has in their life, yet parents are not taught how to help their competitive child build their mental toughness for sport, or any other competitive environment. This book helps equip parents with understanding the mental game, and how they can better help their children grow.

Clinical psychologist and author of The Defining Decade, Meg Jay takes us into the world of the supernormal: those who soar to unexpected heights after childhood adversity. Drawing on nearly two decades of work with clients and students, Jay tells the tale of ordinary people made extraordinary by these all-too-common experiences, everyday superheroes who have made lives out of dodging bullets and leaping over obstacles, even as they hide in plain sight as doctors, artists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, parents, activists, teachers, and students.

Toddlers don’t come with a manual, but here’s the next best thing. We’re Parenting a Toddler! is a comprehensive guide to parenting toddlers, with tons of practical strategies and sympathy for first-time parents. Get sound advice and funny stories from a four-time parent who’s been in the toddler trenches, covering key situations from eating, sleeping, and tantrums, to potty training, communication, and so much more.

NurtureShock is a groundbreaking collaboration between award-winning science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. They argue that when it comes to children, we've mistaken good intentions for good ideas. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, they demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring - because key twists in the science have been overlooked.

When children "push our buttons", we find ourselves reacting in ways that are far from our principles, often further inflaming a situation. When our children are at their worst, they need us to be at our best - or as close to it as we can be. Educator and family counselor Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting, offers techniques that simply and directly shift these damaging patterns in communication and parental behavior.

Who causes you stress? a member of the family, parent, or the society? They are unchangeable. However, you can alter yourself. If you read this book, you'll: Know the principles that guide how families work. Learn how to accept responsibility only for yourself. Find out how to maintain a calm presence in your family, workplace, and church. In the book, Each chapter takes a convoluted subject, family frameworks hypothesis, and makes it straightforward. It will show you how your upbringing influences your thoughts and actions, as well as how awareness and intentionality can help you discover ...

In 1994, Reviving Ophelia was published, and it shone a much-needed spotlight on the problems faced by adolescent girls. The approach Pipher and Gilliam take in this new edition is just what it was in the original: a timely, listenable combination of insightful research and real-world examples that illuminate the challenges young women face and the ways to address them. This updated Reviving Ophelia looks at 21st century adolescent girls through fresh eyes, with insights and ideas that will help new generations of listeners.

If you're the parent of a "smart but scattered" teen, trying to help him or her grow into a self-sufficient, responsible adult may feel like a never-ending battle. Now you have an alternative to micromanaging, cajoling, or ineffective punishments. This positive guide provides a science-based program for promoting teens' independence by building their executive skills - the fundamental brain-based abilities needed to get organized, stay focused, and control impulses and emotions.

This much-needed and empowering guide reveals the unique challenges these remarkable kids face, and offers strength-based, hands-on strategies for understanding, supporting, and advocating for twice exceptional kids. In a world that labels them lazy, scattered, attention-seeking, and a problem that can’t be solved, these tools will help you reimagine the world through your child’s unique perspective—so you can help them thrive.