Good Kids, Bad Habits
The Opinionated Parent is taking part in the Mother Talk blog book tour for the book Good Kids, Bad Habits.
I was so excited to be invited to participate in this tour – this book is right up my alley as a mom, a teacher and a fitness professional. It was perfect timing, as I had just finished reading the related books for adults, YOU The Owners Manual
The book is written by a pediatrician and mother of three, Dr. Jennifer Trachtenberg. She’s a renowned parenting expert and board-certified pediatrician who has practiced pediatric and adolescent medicine for more than 12 years. She is also a clinical instructor in pediatrics at The Mount Sinai Medical Center and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She’s obviously quite qualified to be writing on this topic.
The book begins with a quiz that’s helpful in letting you know how you’re doing now, and the rest of the book dissects the quiz and gives ideas on how to improve your child’s habits now for a better chance at a healthy future. The sections are split up into “rattle, bear and backpack” to mean infant, child and tween/teen. The symbols are a little juvenile but I like the simplicity of it and the fact that the applicability to children of all ages makes it more of a reference book than a ‘how to right now’ book.
The chapters cover eating, activity, cleanliness, study habits, self-esteem building, safety practices and illness prevention via medical check-ups. Each chapter contains helpful charts and checklists which are also available for reading and/or printing at the website.
Each chapter deals with “The 4 I’s” within the covered topics. Identify if there’s a problem, Inform your children about it, Instruct them with regard to improving, and then Instill the good habit. She does mention modeling, but I think it’s way more important than the emphasis put on it. Parents are the child’s first teacher and they learn what they live.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The subject matter is close to my heart and Dr. Jen does a great job of “dumbing it down” into normal language. At first I was slightly annoyed by the simplicity, as I am by the newspaper since I can read at much higher than the 4th grade level they’re written at. However, I grew to appreciate the fact that this book is accessible and understandable to any even moderately literate parent.
One thing that was missing from this book was information on feeding children chemicals, pesticides and processed foods as well as information about household chemicals. A chapter on organics and natural alternatives would have been a perfect addition.
So head over to the website where you can take the healthy kids test and find out what kind of parent you are. Being only 10 months old, my son received 10/10 on his test and if we keep it up, he’ll have a real age of 32 when he’s 40. The challenge will be keeping it up! I’ll try to remember to check in with Good Kids, Bad Habits annually to evaluate our progress.
As an aside, I highly recommend taking the adult version of the test for yourself! Good or bad, you’ll get some tips to make it better. Chronologically, I’m 30. My real age is 24. Woo hoo!
In all, this is definitely a recommended book. Especially for first time parents and parents who are concerned about passing their own bad habits on to their children. Sort of a gentle version of Honey, We’re Killing The Kids! Perhaps this book will prevent some families from getting in so deep that they need that show.
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