Without even knowing it, parents turn what could have been a smooth, harmonious, and joyful experience into a challenging and difficult one.  This book will show you how to avoid their  mistakes and keep your parenting simple, easy, and fun.

If I could travel back in time and give my younger self one gift, I would give myself this book. It would make my life back then so much easier, and my children’s lives would be easier too.

When I discovered I was going to be a parent, more than half a century ago–yes, my picture is ten years old–I had just been through a very difficult time, and I worried that I might not be ready to raise a child.

Luckily I remembered something: three years earlier I had encountered two remarkable children, the two happiest, most serene people I had ever met.  I decided to learn how they had been raised, and I soon realized that my success as a parent would depend more on what I did than on who I was.

I did what I needed to do, and my parenting turned out to be a wonderful, rewarding, and often amazing experience.  My child was so happy and so mature for his age that people began asking me to tell them my secret.

The Missing Step

I still had difficulties though—it takes three steps to go from ordinary good parenting to the kind of parenting that gets amazing results, and I was missing one of the steps.  When my son was seven I discovered it.  My son became even happier and even more resilient than before, and my parenting got easier and easier.

Partly through luck and partly through persistent searching, I had found a new way of parenting,  a reliable way to raise exceptionally happy, resilient, and cooperative children, children who seldom stray from the “default settings” they were born with: abundant intelligence, confidence, curiosity, and kindness, and almost unlimited energy and optimism.

I began to dream of writing a book to share what I had learned, so that future parents could avoid some of my mistakes and have even better parenting experiences than I was having.  When my first child was a young man I decided to write this book in my spare time, and now it is finally done.

Unorthodox Ideas

The ideas in Born to Thrive! are unorthodox.  Most readers wonder at first if the approach can possibly work—it seems too easy, and the results seem too good to be true.  As they continue reading, though, they realize they are learning a reliable way to raise awesome kids.  They know their kids will thrive, and they learn to relax, stop worrying, and enjoy their children’s wonderful company.

How to Get Better Results by Doing Less

This book shows you three steps to get to smooth and easy parenting.  All three steps involve doing less:

Step One – Less Harshness

It is possible to raise children with zero harshness and zero punishment, and at the same time raise exceptionally smart, kind, and happy children.  Born to Thrive! will show you how.

Preventions and Cures

With Step One, you can reliably prevent aggression, fighting, bullying, stealing, lying, anxiety, sibling rivalry, loss of motivation, loss of confidence, and loss of intelligence.  With the help of Step Two, you can also cure these conditions.

“ . . . very fascinating!”                                                                                     -  Erin Carman, Radio WGN 720, Chicago

Step Two – Less Interruption of Crying

“. . . the secretion of tears serves as a relief for suffering, and by as much as the weeping is more violent or hysterical, by so much will the relief be greater . . . .”                                                                                                                               - Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872

Crying functions as both a distress signal and an emotional healing process.  Parents often mistake healing crying for a distress signal, and as a result they interrupt the healing.  Born to Thrive! will show you how to support emotional healing and raise exceptionally resilient children, children who bounce right back from hurts and disappointments.  If you are new to the approach, you will be amazed by the results.

Preventions and Cures

With Step Two, you can reliably prevent and cure fussiness, whining, sulkiness, surliness, spoiling, psychological addictions, and most sleep disturbances.  You will also prevent ordinary sadness, timidity, shyness, anger, boredom, guilt, shame, and embarrassment from becoming chronic.

“Where was this when my kids were growing up? . . . an excellent read!”                                                                                                                            -  Ric Bratton, This Week in America

Step Three – Less Control

Unnecessary control hampers children’s development.  It slows the development of judgment and wisdom, plus it triggers rebellion, turning what could have been a smooth, cooperative relationship into an adversarial one.  Born to Thrive! will show you how to raise exceptionally cooperative, responsible, and self-motivated children.  They will run their own lives so well that control would only get in their way.

Preventions and Cures

With Step Three, you can reliably prevent apathy, rebellion, secretiveness, susceptibility to peer pressure,  “terrible twos,” awful adolescence, loss of curiosity, and loss of cooperation.  With the help of Step Two, you can also cure these conditions.