Review: Above All, Be Kind
“Above All, Be Kind” is a fantastic book which I think any parent would benefit from (for that matter I think even people without children could benefit from it.) The author, Zoe Weil, has written a book that is not only incredibly thought-provoking, raising fundamental questions about living humanely with our children, the Earth and each other, but also loaded with practical childrearing advice.
Gandhi once said “My life is my message” and Zoe makes this her mantra throughout the book. She reminds us that we cannot expect our children to walk a path that we are unwilling to venture onto. While Zoe’s idea that living humanely through our every thought and action really resonates with me, it is her matter-of-fact attitude that really speaks to me. She does not get preachy and does not expect you to be super mom or dad. We are the first role models our children will have, but we are human and we all make mistakes. It is up to us to be able to pick ourselves up after them and turn those mistakes into learning experiences though. We need to hold ourselves accountable for our actions.
Zoe does not dictate what we are or are not to do, but rather she encourages us to use our own sense of morality in our choices. She suggests that the most important things to do when considering any challenge is:
- Provide information
- Teach critical thinking
- Instill the three R’s (reverence, respect, responsibility)
- Offer positive choices
The book is split into seconds dealing with each part of a child’s life from infancy to the teenage years. It also has a hefty appendix full of solid resources (statistics, products, reference books, websites etc) which make the task of start to live more humanely less daunting.
I have a feeling I will be referencing this book many times as Michael and my child grows. (After I buy it at least, I borrowed it from a friend…)
April 14th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Well, don’t depend on just one book and remember that Ghandi was alledgedly a racist and a pedophile as well.
Also this seems to be pretty much based on common sense. “Offer positive choices”? No shit!
Hey baby, would you like this apple? Or this crack?
Also:
“No, you can’t have a toy gun.”
“Yes, I will ignore the pornography under the bed (or on the comp nowadays)”
I should write a book.
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April 15th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Common sense however is the most uncommon of all the senses, so it is nice to have a book that talks about it. Especially in this country. As for relying on more then one book, of course you should! That’s common sense.
Seeing you post reminded me I have to finish looking up the psoriasis stuff…
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April 16th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Unfortunately the people who really need to read a book like this are probably too ignorant to pick it up anyways…
Seeing the state of America lately, I really think breeding licenses should be issued. You can have one, but the people running the meth-lab in your old apartment block can’t for example.
Thanks for looking up the stuff for me, appreciate it.
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April 16th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Mm, I haven’t read that book but since its on the topic kinda I figure I’ll give some knowledge on the one area I have slightly professional knowledge in having been a children’s librarian….
don’t wait to give your kids books and always make sure you’re being a good role model for reading. Board books are designed for toddlers and infants to beat the snot out of. Even if they aren’t really reading the words, they are playing with the book and examining it and the pictures inside. (though I’d stay away generally from the board books that put really complicated words and stories in them, some companies are going crazy with that, but anyway its more useful to have ones with the simple simple single words and such for when they do start learning words or at least they can get the idea better). They even design board books that are actually plastic and the baby can take in the tub. Often they’ll play with the books then and when they’re older because they see you with books. So its important to read to them straight out of the womb. Studies show that people who were raised by parents who read to them frequently (as in nightly bed time stories and the like) from infancy and were good role models for reading (the child grew up seeing the parents reading as well as being read to) have a higher level of literacy. And that’s something that can’t be made up, later. In school years, kids tend to have “summer slide” and kids that don’t read will actually be behind compared to those who do read over the summer and do not catch up. Reading to the child from infancy, providing books at all ages and being a good role model ensures good reading habits and thus, skills. Of course, its important to look at what the child ACTUALLY wants to read. A lot of parents make the mistake of forcing their kids to read things they don’t want to read and take the pleasure out of it. Additionally, a lot of people don’t realize that it’s OK if a kid wants to read the same book 500 million times. Kids always are discovering new joys in words they’ve read before and are making them more concrete in their mind reviewing them. It’s also comfort reading. And lastly, picture books are an important source of visual literacy that many adults do not recognize. Kids always seem to find things in the illustrations that adults miss. Finding quality picture books and encouraging this artistic visual literacy is also a must.
And of course, people need to keep in mind that children’s brains are developing and not over-encourage them by forcing them to read too high above their level. I mean, if the kid wants to go there, good. If not, forcing isn’t going to do any good. There’s stages kids go through in development and there are periods in this stage where they literally cannot understand “shades of grey” in storylines (which is why black and white good guy vs bad guy stories are so popular with little kids) and where they can’t understand certain other concepts until their brains make those connections.
Oh and lastly, early literacy is also important to develop the kid’s sense of imagination. I always bungle up explaining this one but, I’ll give an example. I had a kid in the library once who had to do reading to pay off the fine or something, I forget. Anyway, people thought she was faking about reading the book (you got a couple bucks off your fine for every hour you read) because she couldn’t explain in a book report or anything about it after reading it. Actually she did read the book but unfortunately because she had had her reading skills cultivated at a young age, she literally lacked the ability to translate the words on the page into an imaginary image in her head as she read. Therefore it was almost impossible for her to actually tell anyone about the story she read other than basically quoting from it. This is common. The neighborhood I worked at the time was full of non-English-speaking immigrant hispanics. They wanted the best for their children and wanted their children growing up fluent in English so they were afraid to read to their kids in Spanish (assuming that the parents were literate, some of the parents were not literate in Spanish either) and of course, they couldn’t read in English, either… so… they didn’t read to them at all. So, one of the most important things was educating the parents. It doesn’t matter what language its in, they just need to develop the skill and it’ll translate. The kid’sll learn English fine in school (unless they were sending them to bilingual school *shudder* but thats a rant for another day).
Well, anyway, I’m always excited to make this speech as you can see.
Oh and its cool if the baby wants to just wander around with the board book and bang it around or whatever instead of listening to the story. Kids sometimes just wander around like that but they’re still having fun.
Oh damn, I miss the TLC sessions when I used to be a children’s librarian, damnit you’re making me miss mah babies over there! Those were some of the best damn kids ever!!!!
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April 16th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I went to a bilingual school… so I am curious now to why they bother you? Admittedly I didn’t really start to grasp the language (French) until I got a tutor, even though I lived in France, but that may have had something to do with me despising reading… My parents were always very supportive of reading but my teachers trying to force me to read higher then I was able and that really turned me off of reading for a long time. Long story short, I found out I was dyslexic and ended up having a tutor/therapist for that too, which was great and worked well and I love reading now.
And I think reading is one of the most important things you can do with your children, not only for the reasons you stated but I feel it would also create a stronger bond between parent and child. I think encouraging them to begin reading books is important too, (but not forcing them into a more advanced book too early of course.)
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April 22nd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Obviously I only speak from the kids I’ve seen at the bilingual schools near where I worked at we all had a pretty bad opinion of them. What happens there is, we’d get 14 and older kids who’d been taking bilingual education from a young age and wouldn’t learn either language well. They couldn’t read/write English or Spanish and their spoken language was usually just Spanish tho some would speak some weird Spanglish “I parkrared in the librateco” or something weird like that. Most of the kids I saw just never learned English and had no literacy skills in either language because without the benefit of a tutor, which of course in these poor communities none could be afforded or really provided, most kids just listened to the Spanish half of class and ignored the rest.
Yeah the teachers and forcing shit really pisses me off, but, the immigrant kids who had the best English and best bilingual skills were the ones who didn’t take bilingual education. For language skills unless the kid is just naturally motivated its best to take away the easy option. Like, when I was studying Japanese in an immersive course. If you had English options, the temptation to use them really interferes….
And with the too advanced books, also make sure you aren’t pushing kids away from them either. I see parents who take books they deem too difficult away from their kids, which is also not good. Isn’t it strange? People are all over the place on this. Unfortunately, most parents are only concerned about reading when selecting the book off the shelf they deem appropriate and then they stop there.. *sigh*
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