Expanded Description:
Parenting With Pets beautifully details the never ending learning opportunities family pets bring into the lives of their children. Parents will appreciate the many examples of challenging life lessons and how our pets can be the most effective teachers with our guidance and interactive dialogue with our children.
What reviewers are saying...
APDT CHRONICLE OF THE DOG
“Teaching children to interact successfully with pets is an important and sometimes difficult task. Trainers often see families struggling to make the child/dog relationship successful; shelter and rescue workers watch all too many pets be relinquished because the challenge is too great. Families need resources to help guide them through this process, and consequently, we’ve seen an increase in books dealing with this subject. Unfortunately, Parenting with Pets forces the reader to feel much like a prospector mining for gold. Although there are several valuable nuggets here, one has to sift through a great deal of sand to unearth treasure.
There is no question that the authors of this book—a mother and daughter team—are devoted to their subject. They communicate an enormous amount of respect for the well-being of both children and companion animals on each page. They clearly believe strongly in the potential for a powerful connection between animals and children; hence the subtitle. (Although that subtitle is also indicative of a tendency to indulge in a rather saccharine tone throughout). If they had simply told their stories of raising children together with animals, this work would have been stronger and more interesting. Instead, what they present is a mish-mash of personal experience and professional advice.A weak attempt is made at scholarship by mentioning “studies” supporting their intuition regarding the child/animal bond. These studies are not referenced adequately, however, and are never thoroughly examined. Authors are quoted in a manner which implies they’ve been interviewed, but no interview citations are provided. The text is peppered with quotes from people who receive no mention in the “Reference” section—which is not what it claims to be, but rather a bibliography. The problem with inappropriate handling of reference material is not simply a matter of adhering to rules. The authors’ credibility suffers, as does the strength of their hypothesis.
There are kernels of wisdom here regarding parenting with pets, especially as regards dealing with some of the inevitable frustration of running a busy household with kids and animals. One of the strengths of the book lies in its recognition of the life stages of children and the changing nature of relationships, both with people and pets. Ideas for activities with children and animals are useful, but could have been articulated more succinctly and effectively.Additionally, solid advice gets bogged down in some cumbersome choices in organization and writing style. The authors have included “scenes” of family interactions to illustrate concepts presented quite clearly in prior discussion. Points are made repeatedly throughout chapters without providing additional insight, rendering passages simply redundant. In addition, the authors quote themselves frequently, which is an extremely odd method of presentation.
Ultimately, the problem with this book is that it needed a good professional editor to help the authors succeed in either simply telling their personal stories effectively, or developing a stronger work of scholarship. The very nature of being a parent of kids and pets is that one’s time for reading is limited. Given that, one can find much better works on this topic to spend time with.”
Merope Pavlides
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