Henry Cloud - Raising Great Kids: A Comprehensive Guide to Parenting with Grace and Truth

A t MOPS Internationalan organization that encourages and supports mothers of young childrenwe are often asked what resource we recommend on the elusive and challenging subject of parenting.

Well, here it is!

With all the fantastic books and curriculums available today, how can we choose Raising Great Kids as our favorite? Three reasons:

First, it works. It speaks the language moms and dads speak. It makes sense. We can get this stuff. When I consider the everydayness of parenting, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend provide principles and techniques that work.

Second, its biblical. With both theological and psychological training to their credit, the authors offer us an integrated and trustworthy perspective. Theyve done their homework and offer us the results.

Third, its foundational. This big-picture book covers all the ages and stages of parenting while underlining the unique importance of the early years. As parents, its great to begin with the end in mind. I can see the results of this parenting approach played out in the character of my own kids. No, theyre not perfect. But they are great!

Take this moment from just a few weeks ago as an example.

Our family pushed our chairs back from the iron deck table where we had just consumed my daughters favorite dinner of grilled chicken, pasta, and veggies. My husband and twelve-year-old son, Ethan, headed out to hit golf balls, leaving the summer evening stretching before fourteen-year-old Eva and me. We lingered on the deck, reviewing her excursions of the past three weeks: summer camp followed by a trip with her church youth group. I missed her.

My daughter, five feet eight inches, is growing up and away. I marvel at the young woman before me. To my surprise, that night she talksreally talkswith me about her life, touching on everything from boys to girlfriends to God. In one moment I recognize a gentle shift between us. Yes, I am still Mom. But I am becoming Friend. She still needs me, but differently than in the past decade. Our relationship nudges forward to a new place. Instinctively I know my daughter has now completed her childhood journey and now sets out in the direction of adulthood. Building on the parenting of her past, she reaches out and around me toward tomorrow. And I watch, amazed.

I remember her bouncy, two-year-old dimpled face, her eager excitement at five, her charming and willing spirit at ten, and her metamorphosis into adolescence just a year later. Now, sitting on the deck, enjoying her teen discoveries, I muse that our bonded relationship, forged in infancy and continuing to change, remains the single most important ingredient in our mother-daughter journey together. Sure, there were looks and spankings and time-outs and lectures that helped make her what she is today. But on this summer evening, at this juncture, I sit back in my deck chair, listen to my daughter, and recognize within me the peace of time well spent in a relationship. The nurture of my touch, my eyes focused on her eyes, my ears tuned to her voice, my investment in her from infancy forward are paying off.

So, as the president of MOPS International and as the mother of two growing and going children, I believe this book is the best resource for guiding us through the parenting process from rocking chair to deck chair. Whether youre just beginning your parenting journey, like many mothers of preschoolers, or well down the road, there is help for you here.

ELISA MORGAN

PRESIDENT AND CEO,

MOTHERS OF PRESCHOOLERS (MOPS), INC.