How to Make Your Child a Winner

by Victor B. Cline

Presents practical advice on raising children who are confident, competent, and resilient and offers solutions for common child-rearing problems--sibling rivalry, TV addiction, lying, boredom, school difficulties

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1980

Reviews

[Mimi]

DNF.
Got through part of the foreword and then decided I do not have time to read a book that will infuriate me.
Clearly coming from a religious background (in itself not a problem), the writer cites much of his professional experience and history (again, not a problem, nice to know he has some), states he has 9 kids with his wife (combined with his work history, it does make me wonder how he found the time to be actively involved in their raising...) this was the paragraph that turned me off:

"In my many years of involvement with families, schools, community agencies and private counseling I have seen a good many people being misled by a lot of hokum and bunk in the area of child-rearing practices. I see unmarried, childless professors teaching classes on child development, family life, and courtship; they are well-intentioned, but they have no practical experience that helps them sort the wheat from the chaff in the vast amount of psychological theory they draw upon. I see a clinical psychologist who has never "made it" in a sustained relationship with a woman write an avalanche of books and articles on sex and marital therapy, some of it nonsense as far as real life is concerned. I have seen psychologists whose personal values force them into beliefs and practices that just don´t work; I have even seen whole university social science departments become politicized, hiring only those faculty whose values and research support a certain bias or narrow point of view. Professionals, who are militantly committed to gay rights, alternate life styles, children´s rights, or other such polarized causes sometimes write, teach, or practice clinically in ways that serve their biases to the detriment of the needs of families that want to produce healthy, happy children."

The author then goes on that what is found to be in his book are, of course, only suggestions, and based on his own biases.
At this point in time, I´m not interested in finding out about this author´s theory, as he pretty much says his theory might not be right, but everyone else´s is wrong anyway...

[Amy]

Another book reviewed in my parenting class. Out of the 5 or 6 so far that have been reviewed this one looks like the best (if you can get past the title). Currently it is out of print so I will be watching for it at the DI or online. This one gives lots of tips and helps.

Chapters Include
The Roots of Sucess
How to build your Child's Self-Image and Self-Esteem
How to Teach your Child Effective Social Skills
How to raise your Child's IQ
Effective Sex Education:Nurturing Affection and the Capacity to Love
Conscience and Moral Values: Keeping your kids out of jail
How to teach your child to be responsible
How to protect your childs mental health
Not Minding:Discipline that works
Sibling Rivalry
Lying
Problems in School
Teasing
Stealing
The Lazy, unmotivated child
Won't eat and Obesity
Enuresis (bed wetting)
Going with the wrong friends
When parents remarry: The challenge of yours mine and ours
Whining and crying:How to turn it off
What to do with the bored child
Television:Make it serve your family
The over-agressive child
Ten keys to rearing sucessful children

An exampe of tips from the book
How to teach your child to be responsible
Start small
start early
don't do for the child what the child can do for himself
Let them experience the natural consequence of their irresponsibility
Git rid of the welfare state in your home. Abolish allowance-they earn ALL their money
deliberatley and repeatedly present kids with situations that require them to make choices
always notice and appreciate a job well done or a fulfilled commitment
dad and mom need to set an exapmle of responsibility themselves by following through on commitments
Use charts to measure work done and assigments carried out
Let children be part of the family's decision-making process
establish a rule that chores and homework are done before TV and play
if childrens chores are not done well enough, use the apprentice system-have them work with you

There is more but I am tired of typing.

[Danny]

Good child rearing book. Very practical, easy to read and effective (Just look at my kids as evidence) (=

[Christine Elizabeth]

Great in theory. Don't send your child to concentration camps though to fix them they'll deal with wondering if they're enough for their family in their adult life, which goes into dating. Raise your children. Don't send them away.
Just because someone is a great author or speaker doesn't mean they are good at applying their own stuff. The fact is his wife raised the kids and sometimes had too much say. But thanks for writing the book and staying in your office while Lois ran around like a wild woman with her kids and grandkids. Would've been great to see my mom get married rather than chase emotionally unavailable intellectuals after the divorce. Would be great to find someone myself than dealing with all this crap. Would be great to not be compared to you with the neighbor boy who wouldn't go on a date with me, but think you're amazing while I'm still dealing with emotional crap to work through. Would feel more like a winner if I were married to someone good by age 32 rather than wondering what other emotional wounds I have left to work through. Good thing my mom is like you in some ways. Great to see it show up in my dating life.

[Rachel]

As long as you ignore the rat race sounding title, this book is a great resource for common parenting dilemmas. I was surprised that a book written in the 70's could have such relevant advice decades later. The difference between this and so many other parenting books, is that this book includes advice for sibling relationships ) which is a nice change to the usual parent:child ones. I would love to have been a fly on the wall as he raised his nine kids, because it sounds like an adventure and I appreciate his sound/doable solutions to a variety parenting problems.

[Matt]

My Mom gave me this to read and it explains a lot about my childhood. It is primarily about how to teach your children to be self sufficient and have confidence in themselves early through accomplishment. This guy actually has his children do a 3 or 4 week live off the land experience ending with a 23 mile marathon race! Maybe a little much but I agree with the general idea of the book and think it is very worth reading.

[Cindy]

Back when we had Mother Education lessons, this book was recommended as a source to read to help make basic decisions and structures in our kids' lives. Enjoyable to read and very helpful in basic ideas, like what kind of neighborhood is good to live in. Things that most of us wouldn't think about.

[Jenny]

This is a great book. My mother-in-law gave it to me and I really like it. I don't always agree with everything, but in general I respect the author and it always gives me something to think about. The author believes in discipline, but in helping your child be well-rounded and of good moral character.

[Emily]

This book cover a spectrum of family issues. It gives good direction on how to instill confidence in your child through their experiences, your actions and the environment you live in. It also has quick reference for sibling rivalry, bordom, and more. It is definately a must read and reference!

[John]

While it is now out-of-print, this is a great book about raising children. We have implemented many of the principles with our kids with great success.

i recommend reading this book sometime during the first year of your child's life.

[Julie Kelley]

Some great tips, not all of them possible to implement, but I think the principles are useful.

[Margot]

I read this years ago. I'm pretty sure I liked it. :)

[Jessica]

I didn't agree with all the advice in this book but I liked that it addressed problems by age and other specific problems that children face. Here's to hoping I raise me some winners!

[Laura]

Some of the parenting advice was a bit dated and even comical, but for the most part it was a really helpful parenting book. There were several good lessons that I took away from it.

[Rachel]

It was really great! it had valued information on how to bring up children.

[Michelle]

A bit antiquated...not really up to date. It was recommended to me, but I felt a bit weird reading a book with a title like this.