- Paperback: 189 pages
- Publisher: Plough Publishing House (September 22, 2014)
- ISBN-13: 978-0874866308
- Also available in KINDLE format
SYNOPSIS:
There’s hope for childhood. Despite a perfect storm of hostile forces that are robbing children of a healthy childhood, courageous parents and teachers who know what’s best for children are turning the tide.
Johann Christoph Arnold, whose books on education, parenting, and relationships have helped more than a million readers through life’s challenges, draws on the stories and voices of parents and educators on the ground, and a wealth of personal experience. He surveys the drastic changes in the lives of children, but also the groundswell of grassroots advocacy and action that he believes will lead to the triumph of common sense and time-tested wisdom.
Arnold takes on technology, standardized testing, overstimulation, academic pressure, marketing to children, over-diagnosis and much more, calling on everyone who loves children to combat these threats to childhood and find creative ways to help children flourish.
Every parent, teacher, and childcare provider has the power to make a difference, by giving children time to play, access to nature, and personal attention, and most of all, by defending their right to remain children.
My thoughts:
The mere mention of reclaiming childhood in a hostile world gets our attention as parents, particularly those of us who have a preschool child.
In an era filled with electronic gadgets such as computers, I pads, gaming devices of all sorts called 'teaching tools' most children hardly ever go outside and play like normal children should.
There is of course a sad reality we cannot ignore and that is society no longer affords a safe world for our children these days. Perhaps we have ignored the danger signals, that in thinking to restrict their environment for safety reasons, we have in fact taken from our children the possibility to be just mere children.
I cringe in imagining today's children retreating to their rooms and playing games, challenging games yes, but where is the interaction so necessary to a normal, healthy development? And then, there is the violent games which boggles the mind.
Have we so little care for what our children have access to that we let them be subject to media coercing? For the media is a real threat here as we are shown constantly what is better, faster, more trendy etc...
Additionally parents expect their children to excel in school expecting more and more of them as newer and better teaching software technology becomes available.
It is no wonder that children have less and less time to play and be just kids.
In Their Name Is Today: Reclaiming Childhood In a Hostile World, Johann Christoph Arnold express not only his concerns at our lack of attention to this very real problem. In clear concise format, he shows there is hope around the world and that there are people who care passionately about children enough to make a difference.
In the words of Friedrich Froebel, "Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul." and I whole heartily applaud Indian Poet Tagore's strongly: " Children are living beings - more living than adults, who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should have not only schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love."
As the author reminds us each newborn born into our world is 'A renewed message that God has not lost faith in humankind."
Highlighting clear steps to change our often careless attitude in raising children to be future citizens of tomorrow Johann Christoph Arnold tells us outright: If we do not help our children, who will?
5 Stars for this well researched, straight to the heart talk no parent should miss!
Meet the Author:
Johann Christoph Arnold is an award-winning author with over a million copies of his books in print, in more than twenty languages. A noted speaker and writer on marriage, parenting, education, and end-of-life issues, Arnold is a senior pastor of the Bruderhof, a movement of Christian communities.
Arnold’s message has been shaped by encounters with great peacemakers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, César Chavez, and John Paul II.
Born in Great Britain in 1940 to German refugees, Arnold spent his boyhood years in South America, where his parents found asylum during the war; he immigrated to the United States in 1955. He and his wife have eight children, forty-four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Courtesy of PROPELLER CONSULTING, I am happy to offer one reader a copy of this book.
So if you would like to receive your own copy, place a comment on this post before Midnight 10 November 2014 and be sure to include a way to contact you should you be the winner!
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