Books about Family Life

The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (Paperback) By Joshua Coleman. A readable, practical, entertaining book written by a former lazy husband who is also a clinical psychologist. If you are having difficulty working out how to divvy up the jobs in housework and child care in your house then this book might help.

Clean in a Minute by Don Aslett. The best of Don’s professional cleaning secrets boiled down to under a hundred pages. Great for those faced for the first time with cleaning or anybody who wants just the facts.

Chores without Wars: Turning Housework into Teamwork by Lynn Lott. Realistic and useful, tells what the family needs to turn housework into teamwork. Instead of family members falling into stereotypes, such as super-mother and spoiled child, a family built on the principles of reciprocity and teamwork can overcome the drudgeries of housework and lead children to value life skills necessary for their futures. Through chores, skills such as cooperation, planning ahead, managing money, and contribution are learned.

The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happier By Miriam Weinstein. The author starts by asking, “What if I told you that there was a magic bullet – something that would improve the quality of your daily life, your children’s chances of success in the world, your family’s health, our values as a society? Something that is inexpensive, simple to produce, and within the reach of pretty much everyone?” Now I would say that absolutely every parent I know would want to know what this secret is.
Miriam Weinstein says that families who eat dinner together build up their children’s vocabulary and conversational skills, teach their children manners, and enjoy each other more as a family. The children in the family who eat dinner together do better at learning to read – in fact, eating together is even more powerful than reading aloud to your child in terms of helping your child with literacy.
She talks about how eating meals together promotes a sense of resilience which will last a lifetime, helps in passing on your ethnic, familial and religious heritage, helps prevent eating disorders, develops conversational skills and discourages smoking, drug use and teen pregnancy. “The Surprising Power of Family Meals” has interesting stories, ideas and suggestions for making this time of day a quality family time. And I particularly like the way this author has introduced me to new authors and new ways of looking at things.
If you have children and if you eat meals then this book applies to you, and will be a useful and important addition to your book shelf.

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teaching to Raise Self-Reliant Children By Wendy Mogel is referred to and recommended by Miriam Weinstein who is the author of “The Surprising Power of Family Meals”. Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist offering sage advice for for parents, discussing issues like overindulgence, overscheduling, overprotection, disrespect and ingratitude. This book is full of practical tips, humour and common sense; a refreshing and helpful read for all parents.

Loving Our Kids on Purpose: Making a Heart-To-Heart Connection By Danny Silk

For the Family’s Sake: The Value of the Home in Everyone’s Life by Susan Schaeffer MacAulay

The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer

What Is a Family? by Edith Schaeffer

Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard Swenson

Your Child’s Growing Mind: A Guide to Learning and Brain Development From Birth to Adolesence by Jane Healy

Endangered Minds by Jane Healy

Failure to Connect How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds for Better or Worse by Jane Healy

Brain Power by Dr. Karl Albrecht. To give you an inkling of what this book is about I have a quotation from the book: “A number of investigations have shown that, after spending about 30 minutes or more staring into a television screen at typical programming material, a viewer’s brain is in a condition qualitatively similar to hypnosis… respiration and heart rate may decline…shifting attention to other events in the room requires an unwanted mental effort… [The author says this pleasantly detached condition – sort of like getting laughing gas – is why remote controls are so popular, not laziness, but addiction to the mind-altering effects of television] From the point of view of brain activity, passivity is self-reinforcing. The longer one remains fixated on a sensory process that requires little or no active thought, the more fixated one is likely to come.” Do you think you want to know more about this very important subject?