Pride and Joy: A Guide to Understanding Your Child's Emotions and Solving Family Problems

Award-Winning Finalist in the Parenting & Family category of The 2013 USA Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News.

2013 International Book Awards Winner, Parenting & Family

Eric Hoffer Book Award Winner, Home Category

Mom's Choice Award, Gold Winner

National Parenting Publications Award, Silver Winner

ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award Finalist, Family and Relationships

2012 Book of the Year Award Bronze Prize, Family and Relationships

"This is a wonderful book! This practical and very wise book will support parents and guardians thinking about how to best manage the struggles that all children-and all families-have! I wish that I had been able to read this book when I became a father."-- Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D., President, Center for Social and Emotional Education and Adjunct Professor in Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

"Kenneth Barish, a seasoned child therapist, has written a masterful and wise book. He distills his knowledge of the field and his many years of working with children and parents into practical advice that will be enormously helpful to parents navigating the inevitably rough waters of childhood. Parents will learn how to enlist their children in solving problems and how to help their children get unstuck. Compassionate, respectful, and inspiring, this book stands out from the crowded field of parenting books. It deserves a prominent place on every parent's bookshelf."-- Ellen F. Wachtel, Ph.D., author of Treating Troubled Children and Their Families

"Stepping into the national debate over whether parents are too soft, or too worried, or too distracted to raise strong kids, Dr. Barish shares his insights into the emotional lives of children and what kids need from parents to develop resilience, optimism, the capacity for hard work, and the other good things we want for them. Dr. Barish understands that parenting can be child-centered without indulging or catering to children. By acknowledging kids' feelings, we can more effectively help them develop self-discipline. He offers an excellent guide to building the kind of warm, positive relationship with kids that is the key to setting, and enforcing, the limits that they need."-- Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D., President, Child Mind Institute

"Pride and Joy is a book overflowing with the unmistakable signs of wisdom that only decades of experience can produce. Ken Barish has written the book that every clinician dreams about being able to write and every parent (and grandparent!) dreams about being there to read. To be sure, solid advice and solutions to parenting problems are here, but even more important is the sense of perspective and equanimity with which Barish reassuringly fills each page. This is a must for every parent's bookshelf. Well done!"
-- Marshall P. Duke, Ph.D., Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology, Emory University and Editor of Journal of Family Life

"Understanding children requires understanding and responding wisely to the emotions that enliven--and sometimes undermine--children's everyday experience. Dr. Barish expertly weaves together the insights of developmental science, a clinician's experience, and the practical knowledge of a father to provide guidance to the challenges of parenthood. This book is wise and smart." -- Ross A. Thompson, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California-Davis

"Written in an accessible manner, Dr. Barish offers many nuggets of advice concerning the rearing of children in this confusing, complex society. He emphasizes the need to support children's emotional health through sharing their joys, offering solace when they are sad or disappointed, and by addressing any conflicts that may occur between parent and child. Research is cited throughout the book, but in language that is lucid and free of jargon. Dr. Barish cites many examples that deal with children's problems drawn from his clinical practice, adding to the richness of this book."-- Dr. Dorothy G. Singer, Department of Psychology, Yale University

"If you only buy one parenting book in the next ten years, do yourself (and your children) a favor and make it Pride and Joy: A Guide to Understanding Your Child's Emotions and Solving Family Problems by Dr. Kenneth Barish... Pride and Joy will certainly help parents repair and enrich relationships with their children while helping them establish the rules and limits children really do crave. Best Parenting Book of 2012." -- Gina Stepp, examiner.com

"Parents who wish to focus more on the positive, who want ideas of how to deal with
behavioral difficulties, and who would like to raise children who are optimistic and
confident would greatly benefit from this easy-to-read, easy-to-put-into-practice book." -- Michelle Stroffolino Schmidt, PsycCRITIQUES

"... a valuable addition to a genre of literature intended to support and educate parents. It provides not only a lexicon for emotions but also a language and approach enabling parents to reach out to their children in a helpful, joyful way. The language of the author is readily available to parents because of its clarity and positive intent. These are words that can be quickly assimilated by the parent reading in moments of calm or anxiety searching for alternative solutions. Congratulations to the author on this innovative, integrative, and necessary slender volume."--Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent
Psychotherapy

"We all have fears as we raise our children, and we try so hard to get it right, though we're never quite certain if we are where we should be. Ken Barish, who has been there as a parent and has seen almost everything kids can get into during his years of practice, provides the information you seek and helps you get your bearings. If you are a parent, you will reach for this book like it's the hand of a dear and knowing friend reaching out to offer help. Pride and Joy is a superb book-brilliant, wise, timely, and fun to read. It is heartfelt and full of treasures every parent will store up and use." -- Edward (Ned) Hallowell, M.D., Founder of The Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health, and author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness

"As a child therapist and a parent, I am much the richer for having read Barish's work." --Henry Kronengold, PhD, Psychoanalytic Psychology