As is often the case, I received this book free for the purposes of review. This time because it's on offer from Amazon for exactly nothing until March 24th of 2016. The nutshell on this book is pretty simple. It's a brief (20 minute) parenting book that boils down pretty easily to the idea that parenting should be about letting your children, within bounds, be free to figure out who they are and what they should become as adults. To the positive, at a high level the book is reasonably correct in its assertions. It cautions strongly against the twin parenting issues of trying to live your child's life for them and that overly passive parenting style in which the TV does most of the child rearing. The intentions of the book are positive and strong and would benefit some of society's most extreme parents. Unfortunately, there's much to be said to the negative. Firstly, the title is misleading and starts things out on a poor footing. Children should not be looked upon as friends. The active and sometimes corrective relationship that defines good parenting is not compatible with the concept of friendship as commonly used in America. Also, while the book is well intentioned, I'm not sure that the majority of parents are going to glean anything new from it. Those on the edges will find something new to them but most parents already know what do to be at least this good at parenting. They just choose not to do it. From a technical and writing perspective, the book is a bit of a shambles. It's littered with typographical and grammar issues and the formatting is wobbly at best. The author has invested in some stock photos that do serve to break things up a bit but it falls pretty short of professional. If I had paid money for this book (anything over a buck) then I'd be fairly cranky about it. In summary, there's some good, but basic, parenting information in this little guide and it's not a complete waste of time but it could use some tidying up and doesn't go much into depth. It merely skims across the surface of this very important topic.
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