Zde najdete anotaci, obsah a úvodní kapitolu v angličtině.
On This Book
The book Respect and be Respected is addressed to all who strive for a partnership-based, respectful approach to parenting, education and relations.It encapsulates best experience in well-functioning communication among people - a textbook of a productive communication. This book presents processes and skills directly applicable to real life situations, the understanding why so many traditionally used ways of communicating do not work, as well as a view into the wider context of power-based and respectful approaches in parenting and interpersonal relations.
The book can be used by parents, teachers and all those who want to invest effort in expanding their communication skill repertoire to cope with standard as well as more challenging situations in life.A natural benefit of mastering these skills is ability to maintain influence, good relations and an increasing feeling of inner peace on part of adults, and a growing self-respect, competence and a full realization of developmental potential on part of children.
The authors are known as lecturers of the course that has the same title. It has been attended by some 15 thousand trainees in the Czech Republic. The book was first published in autumn 2005. 50 000 copies has already been sold out till the spring 2012 .
To Implement our Good Intentions in Parenting and Educating We Also Need Good Tools
This book offers you an opportunity to perceive the connections between what we do and say to children in the common situations of everyday life and what they will be like one day when they grow up.
As parents, teachers and educators we want the best for our children. From the bottom of our hearts we want them to grow into happy, successful and creative people, able to cope in everyday as well as challenging situations, to become good and responsible partners and colleagues with a sense of humour. Yet how do we link thesenoble aspirations for children’s development and leading them to become independent and responsible with what we should say when dealing with the messy room, lateness, poor behaviour or forgotten tasks?
Many grown-ups assume it is most important to love children and mean well by them. We believe this is not enough. In the name of love and good intentions some people feel themselves authorized to use parenting tools that do not respect human dignity – threats, punishments, ridicule, moralising, “bribery” with rewards and others. This is often done with the erroneous notion that this is “entirely different” when it involves children in contrast to adults.
We deem respect for children an essential condition of successful parenting, alongside love. Grown-ups want children to behave respectfully towards other people. This however requires them personally to have experienced respect from adults.It is not enough merely to hear of mutual respect or see it in behaviour of grown-ups towards one another.
Respecting children means to deliberately abandon a power-based, manipulative approach to parenting and educating. This does not mean children can do as they please. There exist respectful and effective methods to communicate to children those all-too-necessary limits on behaviour.The efficacy lies in building up a moral code based on internalised values against which the children will gauge their conduct especially in those circumstances when “nobody is looking”.
This book strives to name the risks of parenting based on an unequal, power-based model of relations between grown-ups and children and to show what can be gained from a partnership approach based on equality and respect for dignity. Our beliefs are rooted in expertise (primarily from psychology), and our own experience and the experience of some fifteen thousand people who have frequented our courses.
For readers who are convinced of the value of a partnership approach or who feel it is close to their hearts, we offertools on the level of specific skills that may helpthem in everyday situations to consistently cultivate such an attitude.
Some people are satisfied when children behave well ‘on the outside’ and do what they are told. They do not pay overly much attention to the means they use to attain this (the approach being “the end justifies the means”). They do not see any reason to change anything because they generally do not give much thought to what takes place “inside a child”. To such people, we offer a view of the hidden aims of such methods, their long-term impact on children’s self-respect and how they can lead to mere obedience rather than creating an actual sense of responsibility and independence.
There are people who totally believe human society has to function through the application of power. To these we put forward reasons that show, why such harmlessly looking obedience and dependence on authority have such serious social impact.
We wrote this book with a profound belief in the need to open up the topics you can read about in the following pages. We hope this book will motivate you to use it in everyday life.
The Authors
Contents
To implement our good intentions in parenting and education we also need good tools
How I experienced what this book is about
I. Limits are essential – the trick is how we set them up
Partnership versus a power-based approach to parenting and relationships
II. We talk and talk … and it does not seem to work
Inefficient methods of communication
III. You’refine. It is onlythat….
Efficient communication skills and processes
IV. We need others to understand and accept us when we feel uncomfortable
Managing negative emotions
V. And as punishment, you will …!
Risks of punishment in parenting
VI. I’m really angry!... What do you suggest then?
Instead of punishment – an outline of parenting processes and communication skills
VII. If you are good, as a reward you will get … What a clever thing you are!
Risks of rewards and praise in parenting and what to use instead
VIII. Carrot and stick, or own volition?
External and internal motivation
IX. What children need
Parenting, educating and key human needs
X. Who learns to appreciate oneself, learns to appreciate others too
Self-respect – the core of our personality
XI. Prevention is better than correction
Proactive parenting
XII. Schoolhas more options than its traditional form
XIII. Parenting for obedience is a danger to democracy
XIV. From the book to real life
XV. About courses and the authors
Courses and seminars of the Society for Brain-Compatible Education
On this book
Bibliography