Raising a Confident Child: The Care And Feeding of a Good Kid

We generally talk about good kids in one of three ways: how to raise them, how to cope with them, or how to know one when we see one. In this book confident parents talk about raising a good kid-a child with that elusive quality that makes him invincible and therefore the kind of child that everyone wants, but no one can have. Their message is important to anyone who has a child or plans to. Like the proverbial “soccer mom,” a confident parent and her good kid are disembodied, nondescript individuals with no distinguishing characteristic except praiseworthiness. Both are part of a myth that says confident parents anticipate Harvard Law School; less confident ones aspire to it, others just wish for it. Why we are so willing to accept this myth? Why we are so defensive about it? And why do we want to believe it? The answer provides a refreshing look at “how-to”-this time, how to not be misled by this myth.