The Parenting Breakthrough
By: Merrilee Browne Boyack
Her Website: http://www.boyacks.com/Merrilee/
This is a parenting book available through Deseret Book and I thought I would post a review because overall I thought it was really good. If you are looking for ways to teach your children to work and accomplish goals such as saving for a mission and college, this may be the book for you.
The premise is centered around "The Plan"- a list of accomplishments beginning at age 3 that you would like your children to master- everything from baking cakes from scratch to learning the difference between mutual funds and CD's. Basically, each year the children are required to learn life skills necessary for conquering the world.
I am quite sold on "The Plan." I really like it as an overall strategy to teaching children to work. I also like her take on allowances and dealing with money, which she goes into detail in the book.
Like most parenting books, however, there were parts I did not like/agree with. It felt like towards the end she was getting rather preachy, and that annoyed me. Also, some of her methods I would definitely not use- for example, she teaches that if your child does not make their bed or finish their morning chores, you take them out of school until they do finish. Being an educator, I want my children to know that education is vitally important, and so I believe they should be punished in some other way- having after school priveledges taken away, etc. Love and Logic has some great solutions for those kind of problems and I like their discipline program much better than hers (she does openly admit her book is NOT a discipline/behavior book, and I found that often when she touched upon discipline I preferred the Love and Logic methods much better).
I think in most self-help books there are parts to take away and parts that just don't quite work. I found this to be the case with this book as well. A very good book with some excellent, practical skills, and some parts that I would not use.
Overall: 4 out of 5.
