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Your Second Child: A Guide for Parents
From Simon & Schuster, Your Second Child is the first book to focus on the special challenges and joys of being a parent for the second time.
is the first definitive discussion of the problems, pleasures, and pitfalls of being a parent for the second time, with practical guidelines on sibling rivalry, scheduling, how to avoid comparisons between siblings, and other topics.
is the first definitive discussion of the problems, pleasures, and pitfalls of being a parent for the second time, with practical guidelines on sibling rivalry, scheduling, how to avoid comparisons between siblings, and other topics.
- GenresParenting
286 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 31, 2011
The cover here looks far more modern than the one I read. One of the idiosyncrasies of this book is that it is 30 years old. So, when the author talks about how revolutionary it is that children can now visit their mothers in the hospital, or that babies are whisked away to the nursery except at feeding times, it is odd. Overall, it isn't so much the age of this book that makes it not a favorite for me as the scientific approach. While its all good to base practice on research, this book is too much about studies and not enough about practice for me.
The perfect point is the chapter on how birth order affects child. Its paragraph after paragraph of studies telling us little tidbits about what studies have shown. Reading this again and again gets old. Besides, some of the studies were old 30 years ago, and most don't agree with each other anyway. Why would anyone want to read this chapter in the first place? If you are set on having a second child or are already pregnancy, what good does it really do you to know how birth order will affect intelligence, creativity, and popularity? Its too late now. I will say that it got me thinking about my family, my husband's, and others I know, and how our family will turn out, but in general, it was way longer than necessary. It mostly was backing up or debunking the rumors you hear about second children.
This book about your second child was the slowest read for me. The beginning repeated a lot of the information I read in the other four books. The middle was too scientific. The end picked up, but wasn't as much about when baby arrives as the years down the line. That was good and sets this book apart from the others, but wasn't what I was interested in at this moment.
The perfect point is the chapter on how birth order affects child. Its paragraph after paragraph of studies telling us little tidbits about what studies have shown. Reading this again and again gets old. Besides, some of the studies were old 30 years ago, and most don't agree with each other anyway. Why would anyone want to read this chapter in the first place? If you are set on having a second child or are already pregnancy, what good does it really do you to know how birth order will affect intelligence, creativity, and popularity? Its too late now. I will say that it got me thinking about my family, my husband's, and others I know, and how our family will turn out, but in general, it was way longer than necessary. It mostly was backing up or debunking the rumors you hear about second children.
This book about your second child was the slowest read for me. The beginning repeated a lot of the information I read in the other four books. The middle was too scientific. The end picked up, but wasn't as much about when baby arrives as the years down the line. That was good and sets this book apart from the others, but wasn't what I was interested in at this moment.
June 13, 2023
Outdated (especially in the psychology areas), and overall felt so negative about the difficulties of having two children!
August 25, 2008
I've had a difficult time finding books on this topic. I guess everyone acknowledges that the first child needs a lot of help preparing for having a sibling, but somehow most people aren't thinking the parents might want some information about having an additional child.
This book was published in 1981, so it is extremely dated; an example of its being out of touch include a section on how "bedmates can be helpmates;" i.e., in case it hadn't occurred to you, your husband/partner should get up off his @$$ and help take care of your joint children and maintain your house. What a startling revelation, huh?
Anyway, overall this book was more positive about having a second child than another one I'd read (From One Child to Two) and many of the suggestions for addressing issues were helpful and somewhat detailed. It did strike me as odd that so much time was spent discussing the reasons first and second children are different from one another, including opinions from psychologists. I think, "Duh, they're not the same individual. Why would we expect them to be the same?" Plus, they'll appear to be pretty different when you compare them to one another, and a lot more similar when you compare them to kids from another family with a different family culture.
One thing I really appreciated about the first half of the book was the way the author included widely varying examples of children's interests and behaviors in a very non-gender biased way, and referred equally to the possibility of either child being of either sex. Sadly, by the second half of the book, that attitude had disappeared and the author mostly used he, him, and brother as if females don't exist at all.
I also thought the section on sibling rivalry could have been improved. While her attitude was "rivalry is normal and kids need the experience to learn how to deal with conflict throughout their lives," there were no truly helpful suggestions, such as those included in books like Siblings Without Rivalry.
I was blown away by the part about whether kids should share a room. Perhaps the "me-me-me" ethos of the '80s was responsible for the overall tone that "forcing" your children to share a room would be a disaster for everyone and would stunt their development, but even that was odd considering she opened the chapter with the observation that several generations ago, there would be no question about whether kids should share a room. Anyway, AP parents won't get much out of this section, not will simple living families. Apparently, we should building children's independence even in infancy and we could consider building an additional wing on our homes to store our children's toys!
Still, it's worth a read, or at least a skim-- until something better is written.
This book was published in 1981, so it is extremely dated; an example of its being out of touch include a section on how "bedmates can be helpmates;" i.e., in case it hadn't occurred to you, your husband/partner should get up off his @$$ and help take care of your joint children and maintain your house. What a startling revelation, huh?
Anyway, overall this book was more positive about having a second child than another one I'd read (From One Child to Two) and many of the suggestions for addressing issues were helpful and somewhat detailed. It did strike me as odd that so much time was spent discussing the reasons first and second children are different from one another, including opinions from psychologists. I think, "Duh, they're not the same individual. Why would we expect them to be the same?" Plus, they'll appear to be pretty different when you compare them to one another, and a lot more similar when you compare them to kids from another family with a different family culture.
One thing I really appreciated about the first half of the book was the way the author included widely varying examples of children's interests and behaviors in a very non-gender biased way, and referred equally to the possibility of either child being of either sex. Sadly, by the second half of the book, that attitude had disappeared and the author mostly used he, him, and brother as if females don't exist at all.
I also thought the section on sibling rivalry could have been improved. While her attitude was "rivalry is normal and kids need the experience to learn how to deal with conflict throughout their lives," there were no truly helpful suggestions, such as those included in books like Siblings Without Rivalry.
I was blown away by the part about whether kids should share a room. Perhaps the "me-me-me" ethos of the '80s was responsible for the overall tone that "forcing" your children to share a room would be a disaster for everyone and would stunt their development, but even that was odd considering she opened the chapter with the observation that several generations ago, there would be no question about whether kids should share a room. Anyway, AP parents won't get much out of this section, not will simple living families. Apparently, we should building children's independence even in infancy and we could consider building an additional wing on our homes to store our children's toys!
Still, it's worth a read, or at least a skim-- until something better is written.
September 23, 2008
We got this when we first decided to have Willa Ann. By the time I read the first chapter I was pregnant and started reading preggo books again. Well here she is at 7 months old and I'm picking it up again. I started a few chapters in because I didn't really need to read about "pregnancy and childbirth the second time around." The statistics are alarming and ring pretty true in the little I've read. I'll write more when I finish.
UPDATE:
While I find most books that are about anything having to do with me to be absolutely riveting, a lot of what I've read in this book causes me to utter "bollocks!" under my breath (or out loud). I'm not British, but it just came out--I don't know why. The studies cited just don't fit in with my own experience and that of other "second children" that I know.
It's nice that there have been studies on the topic though. I wonder if there were a new edition with updated data if it would fit better with what I've seen.
It just goes to show you can't really label people according to things like birth order.
Except the part where I learned that second children have especially good social skills...that's dead on. Right? ...Right? ....where did y'all go?
UPDATE:
While I find most books that are about anything having to do with me to be absolutely riveting, a lot of what I've read in this book causes me to utter "bollocks!" under my breath (or out loud). I'm not British, but it just came out--I don't know why. The studies cited just don't fit in with my own experience and that of other "second children" that I know.
It's nice that there have been studies on the topic though. I wonder if there were a new edition with updated data if it would fit better with what I've seen.
It just goes to show you can't really label people according to things like birth order.
Except the part where I learned that second children have especially good social skills...that's dead on. Right? ...Right? ....where did y'all go?
October 30, 2011
Som interesting facts but not completely newsworthy information.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews