OUR FIRST PRIORITY

        Reflections on Parenting    

         Glory Fox Dierker, Ph.D.    

   There are many books in the popular press that offer parenting advice. The soundest are those that are based on research and written by informed individuals who do not have a religious or political agenda. When you hear parenting advice from any source: books, TV, parents, friends and/or random strangers it is vital that you ask yourself, “What is the source of their expertise”? Often advise-givers have no objective knowledge and have either not raised children or have done a pretty bad job of raising their own. In parenting, the proof is in the pudding. Troubled children come from homes in which there is poor to abusive parenting. Children are the mirrors of their families. This sounds harsh, but it is not a hopeless. As long as there is life, parents and children have opportunities to strengthen their relationships and grow healthier.

  Briefly my credentials include: being the mother of three kind, and emotionally intellectually, and socially successful adult children, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a specialty in child development, directing The Center for Women and Families (a parent education institute in Alexandria, VA) for eight years, and being the director of The Family Center (a large private psychotherapy practice in Falls Church, VA). I have been the director and a psychotherapist at the Center for the past 20 years.

  It is important to share a common language when talking about families and children. There are three books that meet the criteria discussed above. The first is readily available. The second two are more difficult to find, but well worth a search.

The first:      Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting

      John Gottman

The second:      Children the Challenge

      Rudolph Driekers

The third:      Your Child’s Self Esteem

      Dorothy Corkville Briggs

  Please read one or all of these books before we begin our journey into understanding ourselves, our children and our mutual relationships.

More later,

Glory