Nurturing with Love and Wisdom, Disciplining with Peace and Respect: A mindful guide to parenting

An amazing resource, the qualities of love, peace, respect and wisdom are embedded in this book, in guidelines on encouragement, listening, peace time, Us Time, building positive behavior, developing responsibility and discipline while dealing with practical realities such as how to get the kids to handle squabbles respectfully and independently. Suggestions and activities are shared to help parents help children, from toddlers to teens, use values to handle their challenges as well as to deal with bullying and prevent drug use and sexual abuse. This book is unusual not only for the variety of important topics addressed, but for its mindful approach in building healthy emotional and social skills while strengthening loving family relationships. An enjoyable read that parents will return to as a resource again and again, Diane brings guiding principles to life with stories about children, parents and educators. Eight Sections – 34 ChaptersSection One: The Importance of ValuesTwo chapters offer a brief look at the effect of values and why teaching values is not as easy as it was decades ago when being a role model and sharing stories was often sufficient. Section Two: Nurturing with Love and WisdomSeven chapters explore the importance of enjoying play and Us Time with children of all ages, the role of love, affection and attention, the uniqueness of each child, and practical guidelines for encouragement and building positive behaviors. Stories and examples of active listening give parents a wonderful way to help children accept and process their own emotions. Creating opportunities for children to be responsible is also addressed. Section Three: Disciplining with Peace and RespectEight chapters explore values-based methods of guiding children, beginning with a discussion of “to cane or not to cane” and the dynamics of punishment. Practical steps are offered to implement peaceful effective timeouts, help children create positive alternatives, speak so children will listen, model desired behaviors, give choices, and use logical consequences to help children accept responsibility. A discussion of values is part of a four-step correction process when young people engage in wrong behavior. Section Four: Healthy Food for the Body and MindTwo chapters offer information on simple ways to provide a healthier diet and explore the use of humanizing versus dehumanizing video games and films.Section Five: Taking Care of You – the ParentFour chapters offer suggestions and research information to parents on nourishing the body, increasing happiness and nourishing the spirit, transforming negative mental habits, and mindful ways to keep love flowing with your partner and family.Section Six: Practicalities in Everyday LifeFive chapters explore situations parents may encounter, such as when a child says “I Hate You” or is disrespectful, when there is resistance to doing homework, when there’s change and children feel insecure, and steps to begin repairing a relationship. The chapter on when siblings squabble and fight includes how to teach conflict resolution while incorporating peace, respect and love in the process.Section Seven: Prevention and InterventionFive chapters include suggestions and practical activities to help parents help children learn to calm down, prevent drug use, and deal with bullying and social media. A chapter on preventing sexual abuse offers suggestions to parents as well as scripted conversations to help build children’s awareness and protective social skills. The last chapter in this section is a step-by-step guide for families that have had a lot of anger in the home and wish to create more peace and harmony.Section Eight: Building Blocks of ValuesThis chapter on the process of helping children explore and develop values, ties together information from previous sections while clarifying the process of how we can help each young person move toward his or her potential.

Diane G. Tillman brings together in this mindful guide to parenting her expertise as a Licensed Educational Psychologist, School Psychologist, Marriage and Family Therapist, values-education authority and meditator. Diane worked with thousands of parents during more than 20 years as a school psychologist. Subsequently, she helped create a global values-education initiative, authored 15 resource books on values education and circled the globe numerous times to do seminars on Living Values Education and personal development in more than 30 countries. She has done values education seminars for UNESCO, ministries of education, educators, parent facilitators and street children agencies, at universities, schools and retreat centers, and in refugee camps.