The Gift of Failure, Jessica Lahey
The Gift of Failure, Jessica Lahey
7 Rating(s)
List: $20.99 | Sale: $14.70
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The Gift of Failure
How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed

Author: Jessica Lahey

Narrator: Jessica Lahey

Unabridged: 7 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 08/11/2015


Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn the tradition of Paul Tough’s How Children Succeed and Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, this groundbreaking manifesto focuses on the critical school years when parents must learn to allow their children to experience the disappointment and frustration that occur from life’s inevitable problems so that they can grow up to be successful, resilient, and self-reliant adults.Modern parenting is defined by an unprecedented level of overprotectiveness: parents who rush to school at the whim of a phone call to deliver forgotten assignments, who challenge teachers on report card disappointments, mastermind children’s friendships, and interfere on the playing field. As teacher and writer Jessica Lahey explains, even though these parents see themselves as being highly responsive to their children’s well being, they aren’t giving them the chance to experience failure—or the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems.Overparenting has the potential to ruin a child’s confidence and undermine their education, Lahey reminds us. Teachers don’t just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. They teach responsibility, organization, manners, restraint, and foresight—important life skills children carry with them long after they leave the classroom.Providing a path toward solutions, Lahey lays out a blueprint with targeted advice for handling homework, report cards, social dynamics, and sports. Most importantly, she sets forth a plan to help parents learn to step back and embrace their children’s failures. Hard-hitting yet warm and wise, The Gift of Failure is essential reading for parents, educators, and psychologists nationwide who want to help children succeed.

About Jessica Lahey

Jessica Lahey writes about education, parenting, and child welfare for The Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Atlantic and is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. She is a member of the Amazon Studios Thought Leader Board and wrote the curriculum for Amazon Kids’ The Stinky and Dirty Show. She lives in Vermont with her husband and two sons.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ali on September 29, 2015

I started reading this book at the beginning of the week, two days later I got an email from my sixth grader's math teacher to let me know that he was failing. My child was failing mostly because of lack of effort, laziness and poor organizational skills. We have offered help and tutors to no avail.......more

Goodreads review by Amy on January 30, 2016

Thesis: kids learn more from having room to fail. Protecting them from failure is not a long-term solution to learning how to become an adult. I just wish this book acknowledged that the "crisis" of overparenting is limited to certain incomes and cultural outlooks, just like college admissions frenzy......more

Goodreads review by Ms Mac on September 03, 2015

I basically enjoyed this book, I think some of the advice, particularly about how we undermine children's intrinsic motivation in the pursuit of "performance" is very good, and something a lot of parents and educators need to hear. Lahey is a friendly, engaging writer and pleasant to spend time with......more

Goodreads review by Adam on August 02, 2019

Yeah, I'm not convinced. I'm surprised how highly this book is rated. But, I guess it does give a lot of parenting advice so it could be seen as valuable that way. I'd say half of this book is on helping your child be okay with failure, the other half is just a teacher giving clear, thought-out advi......more