Greetings! I developed this workbook to assist parents, therapists, and educators who want to expand on the ideas and strategies presented in The Self-Esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance by Polly Young-Eisendrath. Although the material is addressed to parents, there are many ways to use the workbook, including:
- On your own as an individual
- With your partner in parenting
- In parenting groups or classes
- In book discussion groups
- In counseling centers
- In parent meetings at community centers or schools
- For educational guidance groups in independent and public schools
- As continuing education in parenting skills for therapists or educators
I invite you to choose the venue that best suits your needs.
Breaking out of the self-esteem trap requires a radical shift in thinking that will allow us to challenge and change our fundamental attitudes and beliefs about childrearing.
The X-treme Parenting Makeover is intended to facilitate that shift by restructuring parenting strategies and goals within the framework of interdependence a framework that recognizes our shared humanity and need for each other as the key to a happy, healthy self. When we embrace interdependence, we discover that love, patience, compassion, and generosity, for others and for ourselves, flow easily. The message we send our children changes from "you are the center of the universe" to "the universe is the center of you," and in learning to respond to it, they gain autonomy, resilience, and self-esteem.
This workbook contains a series of reflections and exercises designed to help you understand and implement the X-treme Parenting Makeover Tips, which offer ideas and strategies that promote this new approach to self-confidence and happiness. Each of the ten sections in the workbook covers one tip, and each tip has a corresponding chapter in The Self-Esteem Trap. It is, of course, also possible to move through the workbook tip by tip and read the corresponding chapter as you go. Since the book presents a comprehensive and unified portrayal of this new approach, however, I recommend reading the book in full before starting the workbook.