The Parents’ Phrase Book: Hundreds of Easy, Useful Phrases, Scripts, and Techniques for Every Situation!

While I am always happy to share with you a book written by a blog friend, this situation is a little bit different. I was lucky enough to spend some time with Whit and his 2 sons on a weekend trip, and therefore got to see some his parenting style up close. So when I read this book, I already had a tiny bit of insight to his attitude on the subject, as well as from having read his views as written on his website, Honea Express.

Here is some background info on Whit that I stole right off of Amazon.com, where conveniently you can buy his book!

“An award-winning writer, Whit Honea has written for a number of popular parenting websites, including Babble, BabyCenter, GeekDad, DadCentric, the Huffington Post, and Parentables. He is the editor of the Dads & Families section at The Good Men Project. Whit is also a speaker and panelist at a number of parenting and blogging conferences, and was invited by the White House to contribute to President Obama’s official blog. Most importantly, he has also received the “Best Dad” coffee mug from his children two years running!”

What do you say when your child gets caught in a fib? I was hit when I was a kid. I don’t do that to my child, I just run around the house screaming, “You are a Liar!” I am thrilled to be able to refer to Whit’s book now for a calmer, saner response. After all he is dealing with a 5th grader just as I am! And the poor guy has 2 boys so he gets double the fun!

Whit covers many of the situations that can arise today, from bullying to lying, to sex education. Again, my son is 10 1/2 and I try to talk abut sex with him and he does not want to hear it! How funny, my own parents never said a word to me, and here I am so willing to do it better and different, all for naught. It is great to read Whit’s viewpoint on the subject as we are all going through the same thing and don’t often hear how each other deals with it!

I especially love him for including the conversation people have about me and my family, “How Did Jimmy’s dads have him?” The best answer, as my son has been hearing for himself as well, is that all families are different. Where we live more families really are different  so it is perfect and a great way to communicate to the folks where it is not as common.

The subject of video gaming and Internet safety is also included, this is something us parents need to stay on top of every day. The world is changing so fast and our children are keeping up with it, but are we?

We need a book like this to remind us to stay diligent re our own methods of parenting and not to take things so serious that our kids don’t hear our talks. I know my spouse can no longer hear the pitch of my voice, I don’t want to have that happen with my son. So I can refer to Whit’s book: if my son is ever so depressed that he says something horrible like he wants to die, I can sit him down and ask him if that means he wants to be a vampire. That might be just the thing to break his mood enough to talk to me so that I can help him. Sometimes we may just need a foot in the door to get through to our kids, some humor, as suggested here, can help.

In conclusion, I most enjoyed Whit’s sense of humor in describing many of the parenting situations we have encountered,  will encounter, and  will respond to horrifically. Whit gives many prompts with better answers than we may grab in the middle of a situation. These answers to questions and solutions to problems are worth memorizing for the times they will will arise so we don’t send our kids to the shrinks couch any sooner than they need to get there!

Disclosure: I received this book for review. I consider Whit a blog friend so my opinions are 100% biased. And I did immensely enjoy the book, that is 100% true.