Partnership Parenting: How Men and Women Parent Differently -- Why It Helps Your Kids and Can Strengthen Your Marriage

by Kyle Pruett, Marsha Kline Pruett, Marsha Pruett

Book Overview

Men and women not only have naturally different communication styles, but unique approaches to parenting as well. While mothers tend to overprotect their kids, fathers tend to push them toward independence. And whereas many experts tend to advocate "a united front," Drs. Kyle and Marsha Pruett reveal how Mom and Dad not always being on exactly the same page -- which, initially, may seem to cause conflict -- can actually strengthen the whole family...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738213268
• ISBN13: 9780738213262
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

GREAT!!

From what I've read so far it's a wonderful book. Very spot on in the differences between men and women and their parenting styles.

Sober and good quality guide

I was struck in reading this book by how clear, direct, and sober it is about the importance of getting fathers engaged in co-parenting, and I could not agree more. From my own experience, and watching that of my niece and nephew, it seems very clear to me that children are very aware of whether their fathers seem to have wanted them or not, and wanted children end up leading dramatically more successful lives than those who feel unwanted. (I do not have children and am thinking about it if I can find a good father.) I am appalled when women friends of mine reveal that they had children without the father really wanting children (which seems to happen much more often than I would have expected). As the Pruetts point out, it is much easier to tackle these issues before the baby is born than after you are divorced. The soberness of their advice I found helpful, taking the gloss of the sometimes romanticized views that many people express about having children. The book offers good, down-to-Earth advice that I imagine is helpful to men who are unaccustomed to childcare. And I liked how they reiterate that women need to learn these skills as well. Just having a womb and breasts is not enough. Of the advice, I was glad to see the repeated references throughout the book to the importance of both the mother and father being sensitive to the child's needs and the reference in the divorce section to how one parent should handle it if the other is insensitive (empowering the child to assert him/herself with the insensitive parent, including ways he/she can communicate that). I hope not to marry an insensitive partner and not to be that myself, but I think it is good to recognize how to respect your child's relationship with the other parent and to empower him/her in dealing with it (how I wish my mother had done this with me, instead of expecting me to coddle my father). The separate spheres approach of the 1950s and earlier, where the mother parents/nurtures and the father provides/rules, still seems to be in place in many homes. Having grown up in a home where I felt traumatized by my father's inability and unwillingness to respond to my needs, and my mothers' passivity, dissociation, and lack of agency or adult standing in the world, I would like to suggest to readers that this separate spheres approach does much more damage than you may realize. You may think you have more money this way, and perhaps you do (or perhaps you don't), but it has significant nonmonetary costs for your child, perhaps even rendering the whole parenting project completely ineffective when your child does not get a good start in life.

Any parent's library needs this

PARTNERSHIP PARENTING: HOW MEN AND WOMEN PARENT DIFFERENTLY - WHY IT HELPS YOUR KIDS AND CAN STRENGTHEN YOUR MARRIAGE tells how to take advantage of different parenting styles, explains why kids need the influence of both Dad and Mom, and shows how couples can parent more effectively by noting and taking advantage of different styles. From rules for negotiation to appreciating a partner's contributions, this is packed with case histories, quizzes, questions and solutions to common co-parenting issues. Any parent's library needs this.