Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!: 7 Simple Strategies to Help Our Children Along the Path to Purpose and Possibility

Judge Glenda Hackett, who presides over an eponymous daytime television courtroom, wants to protect children and adolescents so they can grown into estimable adults, and this work captures her forceful, occasionally strident, opinions on how to do so. Her early work as a chief presiding judge in a Georgia juvenile court, as well as her experience as the single mother of two sons, shapes the no-nonsense advice she dispenses to parents here. Her seven strategies encompass such basic wisdom as""listen carefully,""""expect greatness"" and""cheer"" for your kids. Hackett and collaborator Paisner have a knack for using approachable, straightforward language: while their advice may not be groundbreaking, it's effectively presented. Readers will have to overlook Hackett's seeming insistence on a wealth-based concept of success, as well as the faint whiff of smug superiority that permeates the book. Instead, they should focus on the short sections of autobiography that reveal how Hackett's devoted parents inspired their daughter to move beyond the racism of the American South to achieve great things. Somewhere on that path, Hackett became both a television star and an advocate for children. When Hackett writes,""I've seen too many kids in my courtroom who don't have the first idea that they're part of something bigger than just themselves,"" and goes on to present powerful examples of kids gone wrong, then gone right again, most readers will forget her occasional self-congratulation and be moved to do more for children. Fans of the show, be warned that there is little here on that topic, but the impassioned calls to better parenting are worth a read.