Place Called Home

Striking the familiar chord that children ""model"" their parents' behavior, Corwin (coauthor of Time Out for Toddlers) reminds readers that traits such as physical abuse, alcoholism, depression or eating disorders can be carried over from one generation to the next. Corwin asks parents not to point fingers at their children but rather to look at themselves and their family histories, and to model such desired goals as respect and appropriate behavior. Drawing on her own experiences and interweaving anecdotes about other troubled families, she identifies parenting styles that can lead to problems (e.g., the ""fixer,"" ""the controller,"" the ""avoider""). Parents are urged to respect their child's individuality and to avoid expecting their offspring to fullful their own dreams. Corwin identifies ""traps"" that parents can fall into even while trying to be conscientious, e.g., the sports trap (of overemphasizing a child's perfomance in sports). Corwin, whose prose style is flat, occasionally gets lost in psychobabble, and her text lacks specific support data, though she does borrow from Howard Gardener on the subject of individual learning styles. But the advice is direct and worthy and is likely to help many parents take a fresh look at their parenting styles. (Sept.)