Marshall Duke, university professor, clinical psychologist, and best-selling author (Helping the Child Who Doesn’t Fit In) and his wife, Sara Duke, a learning-disabilities specialist, have edited a collection of essays featuring advice for parents from forty professionals who have worked with children for at least twenty-five years—each a rich store of experience that adds up to one thousand years of wisdom. Teachers, pediatricians, social workers, guidance counselors, youth leaders, coaches, psychologists, clergy, and others across the country offer observations and insights gained from a life devoted to working with children.

The essays are divided into three thematic chapters: Creating An Environment for Healthy Growth; What to Do? Specific Issues in Childrearing; and Shaping Our Children: What Is Important to Us?. In addition to providing salient information on topics such as discipline, health, education, organized sports, and child development, the contributors also discuss how working with children has affected their ideas, emotions, and spiritual lives. What emerges from these essays is the powerful message that a lifetime with children changes and challenges our ideas of what is of real importance—and what is not.

* The authors and editors of this book are proud to donate their royalties to Save the Children.