Good Books
Book Review: The Blessings of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D
As parents, most of us are eager to guide our children to grow into responsible, caring, kind, and successful adults. We want them to learn to take care of their bodies, develop healthy study habits, work hard, care about their successes, and have healthy relationships.
We want them to be great people with great lives. We have high hopes!
Yet in this high speed, high pressure world where ALL children are expected to be smart, attractive, brilliant and successful — the best of the best — it’s sometimes easy to miss the boat: to get caught up in external successes rather than helping each child BE her own best self; to worry more about future failure and miss out on his everyday successes; to rush in to help so our kids don’t suffer rather than let them “fail” and develop faith in their own strengths.
According to psychologist Wendy Mogel, author of the insightful parenting book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, the modern day parent is “overparenting” to the point of anxiety — both for themselves and for their children. Rather than teaching our children to be self-reliant, self-confident, compassionate and ethical, our overindulging, overprotecting, and overscheduling may instead lead to spoiled, insecure, and undisciplined children (and frustrated parents!).
Dr. Mogel uses lessons and insights gleaned from ancient Jewish teachings, as well as her own experiences as a parent and a psychologist, to teach modern parents how to negotiate parenting in a culture that often makes it very difficult to be true to our values. Although Dr. Mogel’s teachings are grounded in Jewish philosophy and teachings, her book offers insights to any parent who is committed to raising children in a values-based, thoughtful way.
This book offers many gems of wisdom, with each chapter framed as a “blessing” that actually translates into a “parenting principle.” For example, the blessing of longing helps us learn how to teach our children about “gratitude” (so important in this “I need this, I want that” culture!); while the blessing of time teaches us (and our children) about the preciousness of the present moment (equally valuable as most of us are so busy preparing for the future that we often miss the sacredness of the “now.”).
My favorite, however, is her teaching about “the blessing of acceptance” which teaches us to accept that our children are BOTH unique AND ordinary. In this chapter, Dr. Mogel reminds us that, “Your child is not your masterpiece...your child is not even truly ‘yours’...Children are a precious loan to us, and each one has a unique path on life. Our job is to help them find out what that is.”
This book reminds me of what’s truly important, and helps me stay on a path that honors both myself, my children, and our connection to a larger world. It will be on my bookshelf for the next 18 years!