Print Resources

What Kids Really Want to Ask: Using Movies to Start Meaningful Conversations by Rhonda A. Richardson and A. Margaret Pevec: Over 1100 middle-schoolers (ages 10-14) answered this: If you could ask your mom or dad any question and know you would get an honest answer, what question would you ask? Twelve themes emerged and this guidebook was born, using talking points and a now-classic movie for each theme to help families communicate around the children's own questions. (Amazon.ca)

Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde (amazon.ca). Catherine Ryan Hyde's Pay It Forward takes as its premise the bumper-sticker phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally" and builds a novel around it. The hero of her story is young Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old whose imagination is sparked by an extra-credit assignment in Social Studies: "Think of an idea for world change, and put it into action." Trevor's idea is deceptively simple: do a good deed for three people, and in exchange, ask each of them to "pay it forward" to three more. "So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven....

Bully Proof Your Child For Life: Protect Your Child from Teasing, Taunting, and Bullying for Good by Joel Haber (Author), Jenna Glatzer (Author) - "Bully Coach" Joel Haber, Ph.D., is one of the foremost experts in the prevention of bullying. A pioneer in the field, he has worked with thousands of kids, parents, teachers, counselors, and others to understand the root causes of the bullying dynamic-from identifying bully types to exposing the reasons why kids become bullies, targets, or bystanders-and stamp it out once and for all.

The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: From Preschool to High School--How Parents and Teachers Can Help Break the Cycle of Violence by Barbara Coloroso (Author). This is an extremely helpful book that both parents and teachers can use to deal with bullying, an aspect of school that the author feels "is a life-and-death issue that we ignore at our children's peril." Staring with a bottom-line assumption that "bullying is a learned behavior," Coloroso (Parenting Through Crisis) wonderfully explains not only the ways that the bully, the bullied and the bystander are "three characters in a tragic play" but also how "the scripts can be rewritten, new roles created, the plot changed."

Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues that Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing by Michelle Borba- Television, games, the Internet, peers and other forces shape children's morality, but consultant and educator Borba (Parents Do Make a Difference) argues that it is parents who provide the most enduring modeling and instruction. Kids, she asserts, should be fortified against the onslaught of increasingly negative cultural influences violent video games, nasty music lyrics by parental involvement and guidance. Designed as a guide for parents and caregivers of children from three to 15 years old, the book describes an epidemic deficiency in the moral development of American kids and outlines seven virtues (Empathy, Conscience, Self-Control, Respect, Kindness, Tolerance and Fairness) to be engendered in children.

Books by Michelle Borba:

• Don't Give Me That Attitude!: 24 Rude, Selfish, Insensitive Things Kids Do and How to Stop Them
• No More Misbehavin': 38 Difficult Behaviors and How to Stop Them
• Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me: The Top 25 Friendship Problems and How to Solve Them
• 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know: Getting Back to Basics and Raising Happy Kids
  

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