Hidden Messages : What Our Words and Actions Are Really Telling Our Children Book

Seriously, the book was alright, wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. in some ways it is quite a nice format and easy to read. One criticism of perhaps her most famous book, the original No-Cry Sleep Solution, is that you can get to the end of it and still not quite know what she is suggesting you do - which completely ignores the state that seriously tired parents are in. This is not like that, it is short chapters presenting a scenario, stating the 'hidden message' the parents are conveying, expanding a bit more on that, and suggesting ways to change. There is one, thank goodness, where the mother is conveying a wholly positive message.

So... what's wrong with that then? After all, she's not saying anything I particularly disagree with (and there are some ghastly 'parenting' books in the US to which she is an excellent antidote) Some of the stories conflict with one another - quite a few on the importance of requiring 100% compliance and then she has one about not being a nitpicker, not picking up on everything and cutting your children some slack because hey, they are children not adults. She wrote this book before any of her own children were teenagers and I don't think that although some of the scenarios are from her own family, there isn't one in which *she* puts a foot wrong. I prefer parenting books with a bit more 'backing' somehow, a dollop of science can be tremendously useful and there's none here.