The Power of Validation: Arming Your Child Against Bullying, Peer Pressure, Addiction, Self-Harm, and Out-of-Control Emotions

Looking for an alternative to 'The Strong-Willed Child' which my doctor recommended to me for my strong-willed daughter, I came upon a review that suggested this instead. I absolutely loved this book, so much so that I bought it for my local library.The authors outline how to speak to and deal with children of all personality types in a way that does not diminish them, but rather builds them up, and we're not talking exclusively about praise. They talk about really listening to your children, accepting what they say whether you agree or not, and making them feel like their thoughts, feelings and actions are as important as anyone else's. Through validation, a parent or person working with children can help those children learn to trust themselves and accept what they feel as valid feelings. This in turn increases self-esteem, which helps protect a child from bullying, self-injury, and 'following the crowd.' I personally liked that this book made me think about not only my relationship with my children, but also with my husband and anyone else I have contact with, and pushed me to treat everyone in a validating way. Truly a wonderful book with a wonderful message and written so that it is easy to understand, it even has little quizzes and suggestions on how to proceed with your own children, I would recommend this book to any parent, or to anyone who has family or works with people on a daily basis.

Exellent book!!! I can not say enough about it and I now give this book as a gift. NOT just for parents, but for everyone! Ignore the kid on the cover. This is a wonderful starting point of understanding validation. I actually thought I knew what validation was until I read this book! Wow. I have gained a very clear and concise understanding of validation, the importance of it and how to validate. It has helped me tremendously with everyone I come in contact with. An amazing tool of connection. Thank you Dr. Karyn Hall! I see you have other books out and I'm going to purchase those as well! Brava to you and Melissa Cook, LPC.

No matter how old our borderline personality disorder children are we can help them by incorporating validation into our own behavior. I have learned from experience how effective this way of interacting is with my own daughter. She is now a mother and living with her infant daughter in our home. I have hope that if we follow the suggestions in this book my granddaughter will not have to suffer as my daughter has. My daughter is in DBT and doing the best she can. I cannot be her therapist, but I can reduce the pain by using validation. Besides, wouldn't everyone rather be treated this way? I wish every parent would read this book, especially every adoptive parent!

Validating your child does not mean unconditionally accepting their behaviors. It means accepting and affirming your child while you guide and correct their behavior. I wish my parents, who did many of these things without being taught, had read this. There were times when discipline was mixed with invalidating comments. I have also learned how to discipline my children in a more constructive fashion when I am feeling very frustrated. This book is also helpful for teachers. It is so easy to use sarcasm or shaming when a student or class is not making their best effort or they are making excuses, etc. Once I shame a student, however, the teaching has ceased and it's about my emotions, not their work. Highly recommended. I would have like more specific examples with a wider age range to broaden the range of the book.

Every parent should read this book! Not only do I use the techniques on my children but also my husband, friends,family members, and myself. Learning to validate emotions (even our own) should be an integral part of every human being. I also think this book is a must read for every man. Imagine if women were validated for their emotions from their husbands? It's the type of book that if read by both parents can make their interpersonal communications more positive while decreasing disagreements.

This book explains clearly on validation method for children and I think it can be applied to ourselves as well. The book has proper citation, and I find the book easy to read, is not repetitive, has exercises (simple ones) and helps us to implement changes in real life. I would give this book a 6-star if I could due to the way it is written and I find the book to be a stress reliever as well.

This book has changed my view on how to parent. It has been an invaluable resource in raising my boys. Who knew validating was such a key component to bonding with your kids. A great gift idea for new parents.

The best book on validation for parents! I decided to give it as a gift for parents who I work with in dialectical behavior therapy.

This should be given to all parents at the birth of their first child - it is full of excellent explanations of why it is so important to parent mindfully. Heals some hurts from your own childhood while you read it as well!

I think I'm going to find some of the suggestions in this book useful. Additionally, when my wife has read it, it will give us a common vocabulary about the topic to help us discuss and decide any changes in our approach.My warning to readers would be that it is not the biblical font of all wisdom that it spends 3/4 of its bulk trying to convince us that it is. It is an opinion piece (albeit perhaps an expert opinion) masquerading as authoritative, evidence-based science.Pains are taken to impart a scholarly impression by smattering references (Hodge and Simpkins, 1978) everywhere, but these references do not really serve the purpose of academic rigour as normally intended. When a scientist cites a reference, it is so that an assertion he has made can be verified (dare I say validated?) against a checkable prior work. "Don't take my word for it that 14% of all thrombi in the leg occur in the saphenous vein," he is saying. "Take a look at Beavis & McClintoch's analysis of the registry in this paper from 2016". The essential requirements for this to work are that the cited paper not only provides an authoritative and factual basis for the original assertion, but that said basis can be readily located therein. Generally, the references given by Hall et al fail on both these scores. Frequently, the same 450-page textbook covering miriad aspects of psychology will be cited (without page numbers) as substantiation for a dozen completely different assertions, making location of the relevant material impossible. Publications which are themselves mere opinion pieces are cited as substantive proof of Hall et al's own opinions, taking us no further up the food-chain of evidence.The authors would done better by being ingenuous, and presenting their material for what it is: some useful, practical suggestions on certain aspects of parent-child relationships. Dressing it up as textbook fact was time-consuming and bogus.

This booked has helped me change the way I interact with my kids in a very positive way. Everyone seems a lot more happy and we have been able to work through some serious anxiety issues. It's taking time to fully integrate the six levels of validation, however I'm finding that small change in validating my kids is having a huge impact. I truly wish I would have had this information a lot earlier.

Book arrived quickly and in perfect condition.

I'm fully behind validation and wanted to know more about how to put it into practice. However this book just goes on and on and on, theorising about validation and why it is important and the damage done by invalidating for 108 pages before getting to any practical exercises to start putting it into practice. It's preaching to the converted; I bought this book because I wanted to learn how to validate, I'm already sold on it, no need to spend over a hundred pages trying to persuade me. Surely most parents who buy this are way too busy to spend days reading theory; we just want to get on with it and make a positive difference to our kids lives. This reads more like a psychologists thesis than a book that can be used in practice, and perhaps it was a case of just fleshing this out to make a sellable book, as the ideas, principles and techniques involved in validation could certainly have been summarised in just a few pages, and would have been far more likely to be put in practice. Validation - a wonderful concept but this is NOT the book to read if you ever want to get round to actually putting it into practice.