cover image What Should I Tell the Kids?: 2a Parent's Guide to Real Problems in the Real World

What Should I Tell the Kids?: 2a Parent's Guide to Real Problems in the Real World

Ava L. Siegler. Dutton Books, $21 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-525-93648-0

Children, especially those ages 4 to 11, ask hard questions, and parents often have a tough time knowing when to tell the truth and when to protect them from it. Here Siegler, director of the Institute for Child, Adolescent and Family Studies in Manhattan and a columnist for Child magazine, draws on her own experience as both mother and therapist to help parents be honest with their children in a gentle, nurturing way. Filled with real-life examples of good and bad parent-child interactions, the book is divided into chapters focusing on such subjects as sex, illness and death, anger and envy, divorce, single parenting, mental illness (including suicide and depression), alcohol and drugs, AIDS, homosexuality, and man-made and natural disasters. Never preachy or patronizing, this guide should make it easier to answer kids' questions. (Nov.)