PEDIATRICS Vol. 88 No. 3 September 1991, pp. 443
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Reviews of Lay Literature in Child-Care: What Parents Are Reading

ANNA BAUMGAERTEL MD1, FRANCES PAGE GLASCOE PhD1, and WILLIAM O. MOORE MD1

1 Child Development Center, Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

J. Rosemond. Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews and McMeel Books, 1989; list price $8.95 (No. 11 on the 1990 bestseller list of books on child care from Ingram Book Co., distributor of trade books).

This book is addressed only to middle-class, educated, married and psychologically healthy parents. It deals less with helping children develop than it does with helping parents develop as individuals and especially as married partners. There are numerous assumptions about what expectations one should have of a healthy parent-child relationship and children's functioning. It shifts the center of family life from the children to the marriage and asserts that less is more—less parental attention, less direct interaction or guidance, less immediate gratification (so that frustration-tolerance can be learned), fewer (but well-chosen) toys, less entertainment (especially TV), coupled more parental authority and more child self-reliance. The author makes a clear distinction between providing for children's needs (although what these might be is left to the discretion of parents) and children's wants (of which only some should be met). While the book contains a few good points, it is likely that the simplistic central message, even buried as it is in a confusing question and answer format, may be misinterpreted by some parents as a permit for guilt-free self-realization at the expense of their children.


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