When Your Centerpiece is Made of Play-Doh and the Dog Has Eaten Your Crayons: A Mother's Perspective on Parenting

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When Your Centerpiece is Made of Play-Doh and the Dog Has Eaten Your Crayons: A Mother's Perspective on Parenting

2.17 of 5 stars 2.17 · rating details · 6 ratings · 5 reviews

This is a light-hearted look at parenting that also contains many practical suggestions for managing all of the supplies, advice, questions, and challenges that come along with being a parent. It is the definitive guide to raising a self-sufficient, well-mannered child, while keeping life in perspective and maintaining a sense of humor.

The main theme of the book is that pa...more

Paperback, 166 pages

Published March 6th 2012 by CreateSpace

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May 23, 2012 Paula Phillips rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When you see parents out and about with their babies, life looks pleasant and easy but it isn't till you actually have a little one around in your life that you discover that really life isn't easy and no-one prepares you really for the actual experience of being a mother, the times when it throws a tantrum, it won't go to sleep and all it wants to do is play , when you try to feed him or her and they don't want it or hate the taste of it or even worse they just want to play with their food. How...more When you see parents out and about with their babies, life looks pleasant and easy but it isn't till you actually have a little one around in your life that you discover that really life isn't easy and no-one prepares you really for the actual experience of being a mother, the times when it throws a tantrum, it won't go to sleep and all it wants to do is play , when you try to feed him or her and they don't want it or hate the taste of it or even worse they just want to play with their food. How about the number of dirty nappies you go through and the attention that one must give to a baby even if you feel like crawling and hiding under a rock that day. However, with negatives comes the positives and the positives outweigh the negatives and bring forth the joy of being a mother.
Mother Jennifer Koontz has written a book about her experience as a mother and how her journey started at the local airport when her daughter was nine months old as Jennifer and her husband had adopted. Jennifer talks about the good times, the bad times and even some ugly times.
This is a light-hearted look at parenting that also contains many practical suggestions for managing all of the supplies, advice, questions, and challenges that come along with being a parent. It is the definitive guide to raising a self-sufficient, well-mannered child, while keeping life in perspective and maintaining a sense of humor.
The main theme of the book is that parents are not alone in the land of Parenthood. All parents go through shades of the same issues sooner or later, and it is important to reach out and seek the wisdom that surrounds us. The sources of wisdom about parenting are boundless; they can be found in the most unlikely of places. One of the most important ways to learn about parenting is to listen to your children! Children are constantly communicating with us ~ we just need to learn how to understand them.
Even when they don't speak, they are communicating. This book even includes a chapter that tells the reader what children wish their parents knew.
In addition, the author includes a tremendous resource for parents who may be struggling with children's behavioral issues. She presents the Privileges System, which she created for her own daughter after consulting many behavioral management sources. It does utilize counting but does not include the use of "time outs." The Privileges System doesn't cost anything to implement, and parents who commit to it will likely see results in a very short time. Koontz believes that the most important thing you can teach your child is that you truly mean what you say. You will earn the respect of a child by modeling respect, and the best way to teach kindness is by being kind.(less)

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May 31, 2012 Jennifer Osterman rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is a lighthearted parenting book that attempts to reassure new parents that everyone is at sea when it comes to being a parent - that we should refer to it as "practicing parenting" rather than just "parenting". In the book, the author comments that just as we figure out what works with our child, and feel comfortable with problem solving, they grow and change on us and change the rules. I totally agree, and in that respect, this book was good. The author has good ideas and commentary...more This book is a lighthearted parenting book that attempts to reassure new parents that everyone is at sea when it comes to being a parent - that we should refer to it as "practicing parenting" rather than just "parenting". In the book, the author comments that just as we figure out what works with our child, and feel comfortable with problem solving, they grow and change on us and change the rules. I totally agree, and in that respect, this book was good. The author has good ideas and commentary on parenting, however, the book just didn't feel as though it was a finished product to me. I got to the end and had a "That's it?" moment. I think that this topic has so much to discuss that the short length of the book doesn't do it justice. Maybe it is because the author's own child is only 6 years old, and more wisdom will come later when she has parented older children?

The writing style was very conversational, and I wonder if this is actually a collection of blog articles compiled and organized into a book form. From the book description, I wasn't sure whether to expect a collection of humorous anecdotes with a message attached a la Erma Bombeck, or a more scholarly style, but this book seemed to fall a little awkwardly in-between.

***EDIT: A note from Ms. Koontz's publicist: I saw you had mentioned in the review about the formatting issues. We actually had another reviewer yesterday with the same problem (you can see their review on amazon.com) and what we have figured out is that is because of NetGalley’s conversion of the e-book in pdf to the Kindle file – they have totally screwed it up, which we are working on getting fixed.

I am attaching in this email the exact pdf of the book that was uploaded onto NetGalley. You’ll see that the formatting is perfect and that there are no awkward page or paragraph breaks.

This is true, the pdf I received is well laid-out. This is the first NetGally that I have read that has had this issue, and I cannot comment on whether this issue exists in the Kindle version on Amazon.com.
***
Another issue that I had with this book was the formatting for my Kindle - the section breaks were not differentiated from the text, and page numbers and the author's name appeared randomly throughout the text, interrupting the flow of ideas. There are also at least two places where a paragraph stops mid-sentence, a new idea begins and then the rest of the paragraph appears later. This was very distracting, and I had to flip forward and back to figure out what I was reading about.

All in all, I thought that the author's intent was great, ideas were good, but the execution needs work. New parents might really benefit from this book, gaining reassurance that they are not alone, but as a parent of a 4 year old and a 4 month old, I didn't really feel that I gained much from it to help me at this stage of our family development.

I received a review copy of this book for my Kindle from NetGalley.com. (less)

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May 29, 2012 Kayla rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: full-reviews

Ok, it is my policy to start off with what I enjoy when reading books. I think that the author has some great ideas when it comes to parenting, such as the "Privileges System," and I tend to agree with most if not all of the "Rules" laid out in the final chapter. It is obvious that the author has really considered her role as a parent, and how she has decided to raise her child.

However, this book is lacking in many ways, both technically and content-wise. Starting with the technical aspects: I...more Ok, it is my policy to start off with what I enjoy when reading books. I think that the author has some great ideas when it comes to parenting, such as the "Privileges System," and I tend to agree with most if not all of the "Rules" laid out in the final chapter. It is obvious that the author has really considered her role as a parent, and how she has decided to raise her child.

However, this book is lacking in many ways, both technically and content-wise. Starting with the technical aspects: I received a Kindle copy from Netgalley.com. The kindle version I received has major formatting issues. For example, the author's name or a random page number would show up in the middle of pages, which isn't a huge issue, but it can be quite jarring to the reader. It's hard to stay on track when you're reading and it looks like this, "book text book text book text Jennifer M. Koontz book text book text book text 121." This is a simple issue to fix. Another formatting issue, was that the chapters were broken up into subsections, but the subsection headings were impossible to separate from the text, as they were not centered, in bold text, or in a larger font than the rest of the book, which would help a reader determine that they were in fact moving on to a new section.

Beyond the formatting issues, the book had several editing issues, and the style of writing did not appeal to me. The editing issues included several run-on sentences, lack of punctuation in necessary places, and overuse of punctuation where it was not needed. I also noticed several obviously incomplete sentences that were overlooked by the author, or the kindle version typist (for example, near location 858). As far as the style of writing, it is extremely conversational. There are short sentences that end abruptly, yet continue the idea in the next sentence (which could have been done as one sentence, with correct comma placement); and then, on the other side of the pendulum, there are several sentences that are simply too long and feel unnatural. At one point, the author mentions that she is/was a lawyer, and the style of writing makes more sense to me. It almost feels as if the author is talking to the jury in this book, pleading her case as to why one should read it. As I law student, I understand this, but I don't want to read a book written this way.

Beyond the formatting, editing and writing style issues I had with the book, there is one point where the author contradicts herself in such a monumental way, that it almost makes the entire book lack credibility for me. Chapter three is about the labels placed on children, and how they can have a negative impact on the child, as well as the parent and their parenting style. Yet in the beginning of the next chapter, the author says, "As a teacher, I always found the difficult students to be some of the most interesting ones. By "difficult," I mean surly, uninterested, and behaviorally challenged." (Location 258). The contradiction here was startling. To go from dissing the use of labels, to labeling children as difficult, surly, etc. completely dismissed the point of chapter 3 for me.

I hope that the author finds this criticism to be constructive, as I am not intending to be mean or nasty in any way. My only intent is to offer honest feedback on a book that I did not enjoy all that much. I think that the ideas presented in this book have great potential with some major editing and attention to detail. I appreciate the author's first attempt at a book, and hope that my feedback is put to good use.

******EDITED REVIEW********

The publisher was kind enough to send me a pdf version of the book. As such, I am led to assume that netgalley.com can ruin the formatting of a book when it sends the file directly to your kindle, because the pdf that I viewed was perfectly formatted, and all of the above mentioned formatting issues were a non-issue in this file. I have increased my rating from one to two stars as a result of this new file, because the formatting was a huge impediment in enjoying the book in the first read-through. (less)

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Jun 02, 2012 becca rated it 2 of 5 stars

To read my review please visit;

Becca's Book Bug

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Apr 29, 2012 Katrina V. rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor, parenting, didn-t-finish, e-galley

I only got a couple of chapters in on this one -- not so entertaining, or good.

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Jul 13, 2012 Zee Monodee added it

Shelves: contemporary, non-fiction

May 31, 2012 Cristi Marashi rated it 2 of 5 stars

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