The Power of Play
by David Elkind

Best-selling author and distinguished professor, David Elkind provides parents with an understanding of and appreciation for the powerful role of "play" in healthy emotional and academic development. In modern childhood, free, unstructured play time is being replaced more and more by academics, lessons, competitive sports, and passive, electronic entertainment.

While parents may worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant, explicit learning or using the latest "educational" games, David Elkind's The Power of Play reassures us that unscheduled imaginative play goes far in preparing children for academic and social success. Through expert analysis of the research and powerful situational examples, Elkind shows that, indeed, creative spontaneous activity best sets the stage for academic learning in the first place: Children learn mutual respect and cooperation through role-playing and the negotiation of rules, which in turn prepare them for successful classroom learning; in simply playing with rocks, for example, a child could discover properties of counting and shapes that are the underpinnings of math; even a toddler's babbling is a necessary precursor to the acquisition of language.

An important contribution to the literature about how children learn, The Power of Play suggests ways to restore play's respected place in children's lives, at home, at school, and in the larger community. In defense of unstructured "down time," it encourages parents to trust their instincts and resist the promise of the wide and dubious array of educational products on the market geared to youngsters.

Easing the Teasing
by Judy S. Freedman

Traditionally, teasing was viewed as a rite of passage, something to ignore until (you hope) it just went away on its own. But teasing can have damaging and lasting effects on your child, including low self-esteem, chronic stress, anxiety, dislike of school, or even aggressive behavior. Children need concrete ways to cope with teasers and the emotional turmoil teasing can cause. In Easing the Teasing, Judy Freedman draws from seventeen years of experience as a social worker in a suburban Chicago school system. Her groundbreaking program successfully teaches children and parents how to effectively deal with teasing and develop life-long coping skills. Here you will learn:

Full of reassuring advice and real-life success stories from children and parents, Easing the Teasing shows parents how to give their children the confidence and self-esteem they need to put an end to teasing.

Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood
by William Pollack, Mary Pipher

Based on Wiliam Pollack's groundbreaking research at Harvard Medical School for more than two decades, Real Boys explores this generation's "silent crisis": why so many boys are sad, lonely, and confused although they may appear tough, cheerful, and confident. Pollack challenges conventional expectations about manhood and masculinity that encourage parents to treat boys as little men, raising them through a toughening process that drives their true emotions underground. Only when we understand what boys are really experiencing, syas Pollack, can parents and teachers help them develop mmore self-confidence and the emotional savvy they need to deal with issues such as depression and violence, drugs and alcohol, sexuality and love.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
by Dan Kindlon, Michael Thompson

In Raising Cain, Dan Kindlon, Ph.D., and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., two of the country's leading child psychologists, share what they have learned in more than thirty-five years of combined experience working with boys and their families. They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting—sad, afraid, angry, and silent. Kindlon and Thompson set out to answer this basic, crucial question: What do boys need that they're not getting? They illuminate the forces that threaten our boys, teaching them to believe that "cool" equals macho strength and stoicism. Cutting through outdated theories of "mother blame," "boy biology," and "testosterone," the authors shed light on the destructive emotional training our boys receive—the emotional miseducation of boys.

Driven To Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood
by former Kabeyun camper Edward M. Hallowell, and John J. Ratey

Through vivid stories of the experiences of their patients (both adults and children), Drs. Halowell and Ratey show the varied forms ADD takes—from the hyperactive search for high stimulation to the floating inattention of daydreaming—and the transforming impact of precise diagnosis and treatment.