Aimed
at parents and teachers concerned with children of all ages, this book
certainly provides the reader with a series of useful, child-centered advice
and good-practice, and may be especially welcomed by first-time parents and/or
novice teachers in search of initial text/tips on this subject. Firmly grounded
in a philosophy which supports the view that it is ‘better to praise than to
punish’ in order to achieve one’s desired results without harming self-esteem,
Hartley-Brewer presents principles, tactics and practical tips for the
effective management of children’s behavior, whilst also providing cues as to
the more subtle pitfalls of the overuse of praise as a reinforcer. Organized in
eleven short chapters, ten sets of 10-point do’s and don’ts, each address a
different issue (though most are concerned with when and how to use praise
effectively) — with each briefly situated within a short text framing the
relevant tips accompanying the different issues raised. Although clear in
format and easy to read, it is, however, not always clear to the reviewers
exactly which research findings supported the inclusion of any given
introductory text, ‘tips’ or issue (i.e., no evidence is provided for any of
the specific claims made, and there are no references/bibliography offered for
further reading), but this will likely detract little from the value of this
book for the general reader. As for the specific ‘tips’ section of each
chapter, such consist in two adjacent columns marked "Parents" and "Teachers"
each containing between one, or as many as six, short sentence cribs on a
single page — and, there is something here for everyone. Parents will find
good, solid advice, throughout, though little really specific to the raising of
boys in our view (indeed, 83 out of the 100 tips are also included in the
companion  volume by the same author, Praising Girls Well). In the
tips column provided for teachers, one finds the provision of good,
student-oriented advice, perhaps biased towards the affordance of better
classroom management (which is not necessarily a bad thing!), and this is
cloaked in language (and examples) relevant to the development of most sound
teacher’s pedagogy.

Further
to the gender-specificity issue already mentioned (90% of the text also appears
identical in both the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ version of this book), I could not
help feeling that the ‘Praising Boys’ volume was perhaps written from
the point of view of helping fathers coming to a better understanding, and thus
better handling of, their sons, (and likewise for ‘Praising Girls’ — to
help a mums’ understanding/handling of their daughters), with a surprising
amount of reference being made to the use (and even assisted development ?) of
gender-specific stereotype activities and interests. This issue is raised by the
reviewers here in cautioning the reader against expecting two very different
books — but should not be taken to detract from the usefulness of either book
taken alone. Sorely missing from the text, however, was any discussion
concerning the relevance of significant context variables which may arise from
one’s ‘boy’ also being a member of a multi-sibling family, or being a
boy with only brothers, or brothers and/or sisters, adoption, multi-racial
sibling families, single-parent families, multiple-births (twins), etc., but
perhaps further volumes in this series are still being planned (?). Despite
these shortcomings, this book is certainly worth reading by those coming to
these issues for the first time, or for those in search of a short list of tips
for managing their child-adult interactions for better all-round
communications, social and cognitive development. Not a scholarly text, but
this is clearly a practical volume for the casual, yet serious parent and/or
teacher to ‘dip-into-and-out-of’ from time to time.

©
2006 Tony Dickinson and Julia Hui

Dr.
Tony Dickinson and Julia Hui, PIC (Asia), Hong Kong, September, 2006.

Categories: ChildhoodDisorders