Parenting is as Parenting Does

About the Book

It's a tough job being a parent but one every parent will love — eventually. Bearing a child is just the beginning. Parenting, if done well, is a 24/7 proposition. This comprehensive textbook provides information for parents that will help them get off the merry-go-round of parenting, seemingly going in circles and up and down without getting anywhere.

This book addresses issues of teaching in the home, choosing songs and games and other interesting activities for family members, providing an atmosphere in the home to appreciate the arts, have fun and laughter, and develop effective family relationships in a home where individuals are celebrated, not clones of one another.

It provides ways parents can help their children become self-reliant individuals through focus on the development of friendship, intimacy, loving relationships, rituals and traditions, and the ability to cope with stress and crises. It also provides helpful counsel for single parents and stepparents.

About the Author

Barbara Vance, a product of the mountains and deserts of the Mountain West and a whole flock of pioneer forebears, is a curious mixture if the adventurous, curious child and the quieter, more self-assured and contemplative adult. Her doctorate at Stanford university focused on psychotherapy. She prefers "preventative maintenance," however, to "rehabilitation." That's why she is a teacher (emeritus professor) instead of a psychotherapist. She is a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) through the national Council of Family relations and has focused on international family life education and gerontology.

She has conducted leadership training throughout the United States, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia for her church. For her profession, she has conducted family life in education workshops in the Philippines, England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Israel. She wears several professional hats: those of a developmental psychologist, instructional psychologist, family, psychologist and geropsycologist (the psychology of adults age 50 and beyond). She is the author or co-author of several books and the author of a wide variety of professional articles and research monographs.

She is the oldest of five children and an aunt to 91 (at latest count) nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews. Her hobbies range from reading mysteries and history to playing piano, the violin (she's an accomplished violinist) and guitar, quilting, golfing, traveling and hiking (she enjoyed her 15 minutes of fame when she climbed the 8000-foot high Great wall of China near Beijing at age 70, cheered on by her fellow travelers, most of whom were Chinese.