Top 10 parenting books of all time

What would you say are your top 10 favorite parenting books of all time? I've only read a total of 12 so I don't know that my top 10 list would be all that significant, but I'm curious to see what other Mothering readers would list in their top 10!

Hmm. Well, my "parenting" tag includes a wide variety of books about raising babies and kids be they discipline, nutrition, breastfeeding, child development, raising readers, etc.

Some of Dr. Sears' books were invaluable to me when DD was a baby. I highly recommend Jane Healy's books, especially Your Child's Growing Mind. Raising Your Spirited Child is the best book on that subject - advice in general parenting books is often ineffective with my DD (e.g. the oft-mentioned giving toddlers and preschoolers limited choices - ha!). Among breastfeeding books, I really liked (and often recommend) So That's What They're For - very funny. The Nursing Mother's Herbal I wouldn't want to be without!! Unconditional Parenting made a big impression on me - it certainly made me think more than any other. Please Touch and Young at Art inspired me. And I couldn't do without MaryAnn F. Kohl's art activity books, especially First Art (for ages 1 & 2) although we'll be using Preschool Art a lot in the coming months, I'm sure - her Mudworks is also a household favorite. Raising Vegetarian Children is a must-read for those families. For omnivores, The Family Nutrition Book is the next best thing. Mother Nurture is great stuff for mothers' health (not really parenting, but mamas need TLC, too!). On children and media, my choices are The Plug-In Drug, Endangered Minds, and Failure to Connect.

(edited to fix touchstones)

I saw you have Taking Charge of Your Fertility - that's one of my top pregnancy books (and has allowed me to avoid a 2nd child drug-free in the 2 years since my fertility returned).

Fathering Right from the Start by Jack Heinowitz is one that helped prepare me for my DS. I reviewed it here: http://bryansbookblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/fathering-right-from-start-straight.h...

I know that DW liked Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin and Mothering has two books out there, one for natural pregnancy and one for natural pareting that she really liked.

Thanks for all the great recommendations! Bryan, thanks especially for the fathering book recommendation. So far, my husband has only read that one by Paul Reiser, and I've been looking for something that would be natural family living friendly. So I just requested that one you recommended from interlibrary loan. Thanks!

Dr. Sears has a book about fathering (Becoming a Father)- DH said it was decent but that he didn't learn anything new.

Chanale I was amused by your DH’s comment about not learning anything new. Although a compulsive reader and book collector I am a little light on books about parenting. All too often they seem to be written by authors who do not have children or who have a particular barrow to push. I was always tickled by the comment one parent gave me: After researching in numerous parenting books about that contentious topic ‘spanking’ (smacking) they selected two or three books most suited for actually doing this activity. Personally I prefer to use a book for reading.
Andrew – who was a single parent of a daughter between ages 9 to 21 and is now a married parent oif an active (and naughty LOL) 3 year old.

With my sons in their teens, these are parenting books that have seen the some of the most action:

Discipline Without Shouting or Spanking by Jerry Wyckoff. Great little book that skips the theory and gets right to listing possible parental responses to various preschool transgressions. When my oldest would offend, I remember excusing myself to the bathroom to flip though this very useful little book. I give copies now to new parents--invariably two years later they tell me how useful it is! (The authors have written a similar digest for the elementary school years.)

The Nurture Assumption - Why Children Turn Out The Way They Do by Judith Rich Harris. A very readable review on the importance of peers (e.g. small, multi-age/gender groups) to kids' healthy development.

Teen-Proofing Fostering Responsible Decision Making in Your Teenager by John Rosemond. This author helps me put the teenage stuff in perspective. In addition to empowering the parent, he inspires creativity in developing incentives for responsible behavior.

Ending The Homework Hassle by John Rosemond. Some ideas for those middle school years when the bloom falls off homework.

It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris. Desperate to avoid "the talk", I placed copies of this comprehensive birds & bees book on my boys' bookshelves when they were about 8YO. Each time, it had been discovered and devoured within 24 h of placement. I didn't totally escape questions, however...

I would have to say that the book we referred to more than any other and that helped us raising our 4 very different children (a process we are still in with 3 teens still at home!) is Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours by Kevin Leman. He talks about "reality discipline"--in other words, making the punishment fit the crime. For example, if your son refuses to eat his vegetables, let him leave the table when the meal is over without dessert or any food until the next meal. Or if your daughter doesn't clean her room by the deadline to go to a friend's party, she can't go to the party, not she doesn't get her allowance, etc. We found his advice hard on us as well, at times, but with the desired results most of the time.

At the risk of sounding my own horn, another book that I've been told by several people has "revolutionized" their family life is a little one I wrote, Around the Table and I have listed in my library. It is about the importance and value of family mealtimes and is a book basically of anecdotes about our own family. There are other similar books out there as well, including Table Talk by my friend Mimi Wilson.

Sarah Hrdy's Mother Nature from the point of view of an evolutionary biologist - it informed my thinking on parenting and gave me a much greater appreciation for the biological explanations of certain, ah, behaviors and assumptions.

Jean Liedloff's The Continuum Concept from an anthropological perspective - I had one test 'continuum baby' - and he (now 12) is a natural athlete, pure physical grace and I give Liedloff the credit.

And almost everything by John Holt from the point of view of an educator and child advocate - the father of the modern homeschool movement. His How Children Learn and How Children Fail should be read by all parents, whether you choose to homeschool or not.

More recent is The Case Against Adolescence by Robert Epstein, which debunks the artificial classification by chronological age that is so characteristic of modern parenting and schooling.

And, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel. Mogel relies on the teachings in the Torah and Talmud and applies them to modern parenting - essentially her argument of using enriched spiritual tradition to help raise resilient children is universal in its appeal.

In college, I read How Children Fail and How Children Learn (John Holt) and they impressed me as having more wisdom and insight into the learning/teaching process than any of the assigned textbooks I read in my coursework.

When I had some spare change- which took a bit of doing for a student whose text books cost an overwhelming $10-15 each!!! (Definitely a different era!) - I managed to purchase used copies of each and vowed to read them at frequent intervals in my career and subsequent parenthood to keep the teachings green. I managed to keep that intention through the birth of 2 children, until, in the 70s I broke my ironclad rule of not lending books outside my immediate family.

Sure enough, the wonderful, trustworthy friend to whom I lent the books, had a spouse who was transferred from where we lived in E. Brunswick to somewhere in Texas. The books got packed up in their move and in the turmoil of the transfer never were returned to me when they unpacked. It took me years to find replacements, and then I realized that the original books I had owned had been first editions!

These days, I gift copies of these books to dear ones who are becoming teachers or parents, and hope Holt teaches them the lessons I absorbed.

The strongest lesson was that the best teachers keep themselves in the posture of novice learners in unfamiliar fields to keep fresh in their minds the struggles that all learners experience.

It is so easy for competent adults to forget how it feels to be an ignorant newcomer in a foreign land.