The Barnes & Noble ReviewIf your son has a hard time taking direction from anyone or working as part of a team, or your daughter seems preoccupied with popularity and obsessed with her appearance, you might benefit greatly from the insights offered in Nurturing Good Children Now. Ron Taffel, a therapist and author who lectures nationally and who has appeared on "20/20" and "Dateline," among many other shows, explains that problems such as these occur with children who don't have a strong sense of self. Without guidance, these kids will gravitate to unhealthy peer relationships and the mind-numbing influences of pop culture. As a result, parents lose influence over their children to these external threats, or "second family," as Taffel refers to them. Nurturing Good Children Now tells parents how they can protect the hearts, bodies, minds, and souls of young children and adolescents. It offers a new way of thinking about why kids are turning at earlier and earlier ages to peers and pop culture — and why the old parenting approaches don't work. And it provides concrete strategies that will stop children from falling into the kinds of alienating and destructive patterns that so many parents and educators know and fear. But how is it possible to protect children while still preserving the passion that makes young people vibrate with life? How can parents soothe a child's intense emotions without squelching his or her spirit? According to Dr. Taffel, the answers to these questions involve a radical shift in the way we think about and handle children as they negotiate the difficult world ofthe21st century. Adults need to step in, recognize, and nurture a child's core self — before there's trouble. The rules of parenting need to be rewritten so that children and teens can successfully reconnect with themselves. Each chapter in Nurturing Good Children Now