Sheri Glucoft Wong LCSW - Raising Kids: Your Essential Guide to Everyday Parenting

Through a richly relational lens, and using powerful yet simple principles, Raising Kids offers clear, unambivalent strategies that get results in the moment. This book is a must-have for parents who aim to raise grounded, mind- and heart-ful children who will have the skills, tools, and confidence they need to navigate the world.

Petra H. Steinbuchel, MD, child and adolescent psychiatrist and director, UC San Francisco Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Portal

In direct and unfluffy prose, Raising Kids provides the rationale as well as the language to use to support children through everyday difficulties. Informed by decades of work with children and families in clinical practice and in schools, the authors show us how to engage in helpful ways with childrens feelings as they ebb and flow. In todays climate of intensive parenting, Raising Kids offers indispensable guidance and welcome relief.

Diana Divecha, PhD, assistant clinical professor, Yale Child Study Center

Rasing Kids is warm and relatable and sensibleall things parents need in a parenting book. Rather than providing prescriptions, Raising Kids helps parents understand themselves better, so that they can respond to any challenging parenting situation with confidence, awareness, and integrity. This holistic approach to parenting is much needed, and truly spot on!

Susan Eva Porter, LCSW, adolescent psychotherapist and author of Bully Nation: Why Americas Approach to Childhood Aggression is Bad for Everyone

As a physician, I know Raising Kids will enter my must-have parenting resources not only because of its accessible how-to approach, but also because it addresses why. The authors show you how to get on the same side as your kids, find your values spot, and gain tools for getting back on track when you find yourself struggling. An exceptional parenting resource for the 21st centuryits about time!

Catherine Sonquist Forest, MD, MPH, former medical director and clinical associate professor, Stanford University School of Medicine

The authors successfully blend their experience with anecdotes and practical lessons on how to raise resilient children while maintaining ones perspectiveor sanity, in some casesleaving the reader hopeful rather than powerless in striking balance and setting limits. As an educator, I plan to disseminate the lessons learned from the book. As a parent, I will rethink and re-shape some of the misconceptions and fears that I brought to parenting my two children. Raising Kids is an essential read for parents who want to parent with purpose, integrity, and equanimity.

Percy L. Abram, PhD, head of school at The Bush School (WA)

Raising
Kids

Raising
Kids

YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO
EVERYDAY PARENTING

Sheri Glucoft Wong, LCSW, and
Olaf Jorgenson, EdD

Matt Holt Books
An Imprint of BenBella Books, Inc.
Dallas, TX

This book is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to serve as a substitute for professional consultation regarding your specific situation or concerns. In certain instances, names, persons, organizations, and places have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals and families. If any story sounds familiar, its because the vignettes and circumstances highlighted are common to everyday parenting.

Raising Kids copyright 2022 by Sheri Glucoft Wong

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Matt Holt is an imprint of BenBella Books, Inc.

10440 N. Central Expressway

Suite 800

Dallas, TX 75231

benbellabooks.com

Send feedback to

BenBella and Matt Holt are federally registered trademarks.

First E-Book Edition: 2022

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022015509

ISBN 9781637743232 (trade paperback)

ISBN 9781637743249 (electronic)

Copyediting by Karen Wise

Proofreading by Madeline Grigg and Kellie Doherty

Indexing by Wordco

Text design and composition by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

Cover design by Brigid Pearson

Special discounts for bulk sales are available. Please contact .

I dedicate this book to all of the children in my life, who have been my true mentors; and most especially to my daughters, Jamie and Jessie, who have kept me learning, laughing, growing, and forever grateful to be their mom.

SGW

Raising Kids is dedicated to the memory of my devoted parents, Barney and Rosemarie, to my beloved wife and parenting partner, Tanya, and to our daughter, Juliette, who widened our world and filled it with wonder.

OJ

by Julie Lythcott-Haims

W ho among us hasnt longed for a do-over with some aspect of our parenting? I know I have. Let me put it to you plainly: I have had the privilege of a good deal of education and am the author of a well-regarded parenting book that was based on my experiences as a university dean. Yet when it came to raising my son and daughter, I found it hard to step into my authority as a parent.

For example, I didnt know how to set boundaries or expectations with my kids without coming off as mean. I searched for a compromise in every single transition or tough moment because I wanted to minimize hard feelings and hoped every decision would feel fair. I felt a great deal of stress whenever my kids perspective conflicted with mine or when the kids experienced any type of conflict with one another. In the aggregate, this amounted to me shirking my authority until I reached a boiling point, at which point I felt unappreciated as a parent and got frustrated or downright angry.

In hindsight, I can see that I didnt fully appreciate how a child steadily grows from the utter dependency of earliest childhood into a fully capable adult. Or of how a parent either facilitates or hinders that growth. I also didnt know that my ability to regulate my actions and reactions would set the context for my childrens upbringing, for my effectiveness as their parent, and for how it would feel to be a member of our family.

Oh, how I wish Id had this book to guide me. In its pages, authors Sheri Glucoft Wong (an esteemed San Francisco Bay Area family therapist, consultant, and parent educator) and Dr. Olaf Ole Jorgenson (a Silicon Valleybased school leader, trainer, and teacher) offer a guided hands-on approach that I found myself quoting well before the book was published. As an author and speaker in the parenting space, I have the opportunity to read and support many of the new titles published each year. Trust me when I say that Raising Kids is in a different league, and that our parenting bookshelves will be enhanced by its presence.

I met Ole while drafting my own book How to Raise an Adult. The idea for my book came from the overparenting Id observed as a college dean and experienced as a parent in Silicon Valley, but I wanted to know if K12 educators could support my hunch that overparenting harms kids. A friend put me in touch with Ole, the longtime head of school at Almaden Country Day School (ACDS), which is an independent school for pre-Keighth graders in San Jose, California, that offers a unique balance of academic rigor, character development, and the joy of childhood. Needless to say, Ole had indeed witnessed parents struggling with overparenting in his school community, and its fair to say that he was as concerned as I was about parents needing perspective.