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    Wonderful Ways to Love a Child: Inspired Ideas for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
    Wonderful Ways to Love a Child: Inspired Ideas for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
    Wonderful Ways to Love a Child: Inspired Ideas for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
    Ebook155 pages2 hours

    Wonderful Ways to Love a Child: Inspired Ideas for Raising Happy, Healthy Children

    By Judy Ford and Amanda Ford

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    About this ebook

    A Powerful Lesson on Unconditional Love and How to Raise Happy Children

    “A must for every family library.”—USA Today

    This collection of essays offers a gentle guide on how to put your love into daily actions. A parent’s calling is to raise a person. By making loving actions part of your life, you have the power to build the kind of family unit most people long for. Wonderful Ways to Love a Child is filled with true stories of parents and children who are nurturing strong and loving families. The book provides the support that empowers you to be the parent you want to be and expands your parenting skills.

    No simple tricks. Cultivating a loving relationship with your child demands integrity, compassion, and emotional honesty. It is a forever commitment to continuous loving actions–even when you are too tired. This low-stress approach to positive parenting produces children with high self-esteem. This is how children succeed.

    A perfect gift for new parents. Wonderful Ways to Love a Child is a prescription to strengthen family bonds that will last a lifetime. There are many different parenting styles–this one is based in love and logic, and positive discipline. Learn to put yourselves in your children’s shoes–and have fun in the process.

    In this book you’ll discover guides to:

    • Loving yourself and allowing your child to love themselves
    • Giving the gift of your presence and being open to the miracle of transformation
    • Saying yes as often as possible, and knowing when to say no
    • Teaching that all feelings are acceptable and making room for the Crankies
    • Delighting in silliness by laughing, dancing and singing together
    • Teaching values by example
    • Other essential tools to ensure a loving, lasting friendship with your children–and make them want to come visit when they are older

    If you enjoyed parenting books such as How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and How to Listen so Kids Will Talk, 1-2-3 Magic, or Parenting with Love and Logic, you’ll love Wonderful Ways to Love a Child.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTMA Press
    Release dateJul 14, 2020
    ISBN9781642502930
    Wonderful Ways to Love a Child: Inspired Ideas for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
    Author

    Judy Ford

    Judy Ford is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with heart and soul, who has been studying love and relationships for over three decades. Her work has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Family Circle, Women's World, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Woman's Day, and more. With compassion and candor, she inspires us to persevere through life’s challenges and to share our gifts with others. For more, visit www.judyford.com

    Read more from Judy Ford

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      Book preview

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Child - Judy Ford

      Praise for Wonderful Ways to Love a Child

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Child is a beautiful guide to aid parents in cultivating love, understanding, respect, and kindness in the most important relationship they will ever have—the one with their child.

      —Amanda Ford, author of Be True to Yourself and Retail Therapy

      A beautiful and moving guide to connecting with your child. I buy this for all my parental friends!

      —Becca Anderson, author of The Book of Awesome Women

      If you don’t have a child, surprise someone who does and give them a copy of this book. They’ll love you for it!

      —The New Times

      A must for every family library.

      —USA Today

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Child

      Other Books by Judy Ford

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Teen

      Wonderful Ways to Be a Family

      Wonderful Ways to Be a Stepparent

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Grandchild

      Expecting Baby

      Between Mother and Daughter

      Getting Over Getting Mad

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Child

      Inspired Ideas for Raising
      Happy, Healthy Children

      Judy Ford

      Coral Gables

      Copyright © 1991, 2003, 2020 Judy Ford

      2020 edition published by Conari Press, an imprint of Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

      Cover: Roberto Nuñez

      Interior Design: Jermaine Lau

      Mango is an active supporter of authors’ rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.

      Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the author’s intellectual property. Please honor the author’s work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our author’s rights.

      For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:

      Mango Publishing Group

      2850 S Douglas Road, 2nd Floor

      Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

      info@mango.bz

      For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at sales@mango.bz. For trade and wholesale sales, please contact Ingram Publisher Services at customer.service@ingramcontent.com or +1.800.509.4887.

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Child: Inspired Ideas for Raising Happy, Healthy Children

      LCCN has been requested

      ISBNs: (p) 978-1-64250-292-3 (e) 978-1-64250-293-0

      BISAC: FAM020000, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Fatherhood

      Printed in the United States of America

      For Amanda Leigh who so graciously allows me to share our story.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      Parenting with Loving Actions

      Essence

      Really Love Yourself

      Allow Them to Love Themselves

      Learn About Parenting

      Handle with Care

      Give Your Presence

      Listen from Your Heart

      Speak Kindly

      Encourage, Encourage

      Try to Understand

      Answer Their Questions

      Ask Their Opinions

      Learn from Them

      Say Yes as Often as Possible

      Say No When Necessary

      Honor Their Noes

      Celebrate Mistakes

      Admit Your Mistakes

      Touch Gently

      Teach That All Feelings Are Acceptable

      Speak to Their True Feelings

      Let Them Cry

      Don’t Hide Your Tears

      Make Room for the Crankies and the Quarrels

      Teach Values by Example

      Honor Their Differences

      Share Your Dreams

      Expressions

      Change Your Routine

      Laugh, Dance, and Sing Together

      Call Them Love Names

      Send Them Love Letters

      Build Lots of Blanket Forts

      Fly Kites Together

      Lighten Up

      Take Time Away

      Read Books Aloud

      Create a Circle of Quiet

      Play Hooky Together

      Walk in the Rain

      Go Barefoot

      Frame Their Art and Hang It on the Wall

      Stay Up Late Together

      Delight in Silliness

      Splash a Lot

      Giggle

      Keep Messes in Perspective

      Enjoy Dinner Together

      Brag About Them

      Generate Family Festivals

      Thank Them for the Little Things

      Esprit

      Focus on the Joy They Bring

      Believe in Possibilities

      Open Up to the Miracle of Transformation

      Remember That They Have Not Been on the Earth Very Long

      Marvel at How They Are Growing

      Let Them Help

      Cherish the Innocence

      Listen for the Spiritual Language

      Build Family-Friendly Neighborhoods

      Let Go When It’s Time

      Let Them Come Back

      Show Them Compassion and Ask for Theirs

      Protect All Children

      Keep Them in Your Hearts and in Your Prayers

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Foreword

      I don’t remember much from my childhood. At least, I don’t remember my childhood with the same clarity as my days as an active high school student or my years as a coed living in the dorms. My memories of life before age thirteen are fuzzy. Exacts and specifics elude me, and instead random, unconnected images flash occasionally in my mind like a poorly organized photo album. For example, I do remember the name of my first grade teacher, but I don’t remember who I played with at recess, where I sat in the classroom, or what I learned that year. I also remember crying in the second grade because my best friend hurt my feelings, but I can’t, no matter how hard I try, remember exactly what she did. Amid all these unclear and incomplete images, however, are a few standout events that I remember as precisely as if they happened yesterday. And there is one in particular that is my favorite.

      I was eight years old and my mom and I were driving home after a day of running errands. We had had a wonderful time together going to the pharmacy, picking up the dry cleaning, and browsing the bookshop. Just before we reached our neighborhood my mom said, I hope you and I can always have fun together. When I asked her why we might not, she explained that sometimes mothers and daughters fought, that sometimes, as daughters grew up, mothers and daughters grew apart.

      Then, with sincerity, my mom told me, No matter what, I want us to always have a good relationship.

      Immediately I understood what my mom meant. It wasn’t that she hoped we’d never have a fight; it was much more than that. She knew we would hit rough spots in our relationship, that we wouldn’t always agree, that I wouldn’t always want her around, that running errands together on a Sunday wouldn’t always be as carefree as they were that day. What my mom meant was that she was willing to work through those difficult times, willing to fight it out, willing to give it her all to cultivate a loving mother-daughter relationship.

      Watching my mother, I have learned that being a wonderful parent and developing an exceptional relationship with a child is an act of choice. I’ve often heard stressed-out mothers say to my mom, You’re just lucky, that’s why you and your daughter get along. If you had my wild kid, you would be miserable. Statements like these aren’t true. A person doesn’t become a good parent by chance, and a baby doesn’t become a good child by luck. My mom often repeats a quote from Jackie Kennedy Onassis: If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much. Early in her life as a parent, my mom decided that she was going to succeed. She made an aware, conscious, and thoughtful choice to make raising me, her daughter, her number one priority.

      My mom has said to me, I may have failed in many areas of my life, but in raising you I succeeded. As her daughter, I must agree. My childhood was an absolute success! Now as I begin my adult life, my relationship with my mom continues strong, just as she’d always hoped it would.

      Wonderful Ways to Love a Child is a blessing for both parents and children. The words are heartfelt, the stories are true, and the advice can help every family have a success story of their own. Wonderful Ways to Love a Child is a beautiful guide to aid parents in cultivating love, understanding, respect, and kindness in the most important relationship they will ever have—the one with their child.

      —Amanda Ford

      Parenting with Loving Actions

      It is not enough to feel love for your child, you must be able to express your love through your actions.

      Loving your child is simple and perplexing—you can’t just feel it, you’ve got to show it! Feeling love in your heart for your child is not enough—to love your baby, your toddler, your adolescent through all the stages and phases of childhood requires that you express your love through your loving actions; and, as you probably already know, it’s a lifetime commitment that requires your energy, demands lots of work, and calls you to rise above your own conditioning and preconceived notions. You will have to grow to your highest calling. You will have to be always mindful of what you say and do since you are the most important person in your child’s life and in your heart you know that how you treat your child each and every moment does matter.

      Your loving actions are needed from

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