Recommended Resources
Kidpower is very selective about the books and organizations we recommend. As a diverse organization ourselves, we don’t all necessarily agree with everything said or recommended by the following publications and groups, but each provides important information that we have found useful. This section includes Personal Safety Resources, Parenting Resources, School Safety Resources, and Emotional Safety Resources.
New Parenting Book with Kidpower chapter!
Courageous Parents, Confident Kids: Letting Go So You Both Can Grow
by MojoMom Creator and Kidpower North Carolina Center Director, Amy Thiemann, Ph.D.
This book addresses the anxiety created by helicopter parenting with positive and practical tools. The chapters are written by 14 different parenting experts. We are proud to be one of them with our chapter, "Kidpower: Skills for Safety, Skills for Independence.”
“The insight and knowledge provided within these pages can help adults navigate brilliantly to the destination we all want: Loving and effective parenting.”
--Gavin de Becker, Bestselling Author of The Gift of Fear and Protecting The Gift
Personal Safety Resources
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence and Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)
by best-selling author and violence prediction expert Gavin de Becker
All of Gavin de Becker’s books are classics in the personal safety and crime prevention field, with wise and unique insights into how to protect yourself and your family from harm in ways that are empowering and effective rather than fearful.
Real World Safety for Women
by Kidpower Marketing Advisor Michael Linehan and Christine Schatner
Outlines Seven Keys to Personal Safety to help you develop your inner strength, control over your life and your emotional and physical well-being.. Also offers simple and powerful techniques when fighting is the only option.
Beauty Bites Beast: Awakening the Warrior Within Women and Girls
by Ellen B. Snortland
Inspiring stories and lessons for women and girls on how to defend themselves and the importance of taking charge of their own verbal and physical self-defense.
Strong on Defense: Survival Rules to Protect You and Your Family From Crime
by Sanford Strong
Outlines the advance mental preparation needed to react immediately and control fear when confronted with violent crime. A step-by-step guide to developing the mindset needed to survive in dangerous crime scenarios.
Parenting Resources
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
by Gabor Mate and Gordon Neufeld.
Illustrates how the connection of a parent and child is crucial to healthy development even when the influence of peers competes for attention.
How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk
by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
Provides a step-by-step approach to improve parents’ ability to talk and problem-solve with their children.
MojoMom: Nurturing Yourself While Raising Your Family book and website by Courageous Parents, Confident Kids
Creator and Kidpower North Carolina Center DirectorAmy Thiemann, Ph.D.
A wonderful gift for new mothers!
1,2,3…The Toddler Years: A Practical Guide for Parents and Caregivers
by Kidpower Founding Executive Director Irene van der Zande with Santa Cruz Toddler Care Center Staff. Provides an entertaining and useful approach to how parents and caregivers can make the most of their children’s toddler years.
Your Self-Confident Baby
by Resources for Infant Educarers Founder Magda Gerber and Allison Johnson
Outlines a parenting philosophy based on respect and treating a baby as a competent person, communicating with him or her, and providing the room for a baby to explore.
Uncommon Sense for Parents With Teenagers
by Richard Riera Ph.D.
This question-and-answer book helps parents understand and cope with issues of modern teenage life while encouraging parents to move from being their child’s manager to becoming a consultant.
How to Say No and Keep Your Friends: Peer Pressure Reversal for Teens and Preteens
by Sharon Scott
This book presents suggestions and effective skills for teenagers dealing with negative peer pressure.
School Safety Resources
Harassment-Free Hallways: How to Stop Sexual Harassment in Schools is a response to the research report Hostile Hallways, which revealed the need for a transformation in our nations schools. By the American Association of University Women.
This resource guide for parents, students, schools, and school districts was created by a task force of educators, researchers and experts on school-based sexual harassment. The guide provides assistance in assessing strengths and weaknesses of existing sexual harassment policies, developing user-friendly policies from the existing ones, understanding the rights and responsibilities that a school has to report and respond to sexual harassment, and how to take a strong leadership role in preventing sexual harassment cases. This guide is available for free at www.aauw.org.
The Media Awareness Network in Canada has a wealth of lesson plans for different grades on how to teach Media Awareness Skills. In their section on gender stereotypes and sexual assault, they have lessons that include asking what it means to “act like a man” and “be a lady,” how this affects the students’ images of themselves, and how this relates to violence. They also have lessons on diversity and violence, including homophobia and racism.
Killing Us Softly 4
Featuring Jean Kilbourne
This compelling film gives realistic examples that show the misuse of women and girls in advertising to sell products and how this unrealistic view of women created by the media has had a destructive impact on women’s lives. Offers free curriculum on use of the film for high schools and colleges.
Tough Guise: Violence Media & the Crisis in Masculinity
Written by Jackson Katz & Jeremy Earp. Directed by Sut Jhally.
Tough Guise is a compelling educational video geared toward college and high school students that systematically examines the relationship between pop-cultural imagery and the ways that men are socialized to be violent.
Emotional Safety Resources
The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse 20th Anniversary Edition
by Founding Board President of Kidpower Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.
Knowing how heal from childhood sexual abuse is essential in having joy and freedom in life. This ground-breaking book has empowered millions of survivors of sexual abuse and their supporters with facts, real life experiences, and effective tools for healing.
Emotional safety requires understanding your feelings and knowing how to manage them. The first book outlines the characteristics of highly sensitive people and gives strategies for coping. The second book helps parents and caregivers of highly senstive children to boost their self-esteem, reduce their feelings of shame, and manage discipline.