Positive Parenting Book Arrives

"Parenting has become increasingly difficult in a world where commercial media competes with parents to shape a child's values and behaviors. Dr. Alvy's book provides many practical parenting tips and ideas to help make parents more confidant and effective in shaping their children's growth and development." - Dr. Karol Kumpfer, Professor, University of Utah, creator of the Strengthening Families Program, and former director of the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention

Raising children in the 21st Century is both parenting in the worst of times and parenting in the best of times. The Positive Parent is an essential resource for navigating the challenges and opportunities that today's families face.

Dr. Alvy shows parents how to help their children reach their full potential through the power of positive parenting. With humor and passion, Dr. Alvy provides skills, helpful resources and guidelines to help moms and dads become a Positive Parent.

Learn how to:

- Give Children Warmth, Acceptance and Respect
- Enjoy Child Development and Be Alert to Special Needs
- Use Firm and Fair Leadership
- Avoid Corporal Punishment and Verbal Aggression
- Start Early in Preparing Children for School
- Create a Home Environment That Supports Education
- Be an Active Partner with Your Child's School
- Manage Your Child's Obesity and Eating-Related Problems
- Teach Children About Their Own and Other Cultures
- Teach Children About Substance Abuse
- Teach Children About Sexuality
- Teach Children to Be Financially Successful and Giving
- Manage Your Children's Media and Technology Exposure
- Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

- Nurture the Relationship In Which You Are Raising Your Children
- Set a Good Example of Life Long Learning

While the major section of The Positive Parent is devoted to the guidelines, Dr. Alvy's book also includes chapters on the issues and challenges that are particular to raising children in modern times, as well as the research that points to the types of parenting that are most beneficial and the types that are least helpful.

There is also a special chapter on the Parenting of Children with Special Needs, which reviewers of advance copies say is 'worth the price of admission in and of itself.'

In addition there are chapters about the modern parenting and family skill-building programs that give today's parents an educational advantage over all prior generations of parents, as well as other great parenting education resources like the best parenting websites on the Internet.

Dr. Alvy also introduces parents to, and encourages them to become part of, a new grassroots effort to make effective parenting a societal priority through NEPI, the National Effective Parenting Initiative. (www.effectiveparentingusa.org)

Dr. Kerby T. Alvy is a nationally and internationally respected authority on parenting and parent training. He is the Executive Director and Founder of the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring which has received worldwide acclaim for creating, delivering and disseminating model parent training programs. He is also the Founder and a Founding Board Member of the National Effective Parenting Initiative.

Dr. Alvy is a prolific author of books and articles on parenting, parent training, child development, and child abuse prevention, as well as authoring and co-authoring parenting education programs and seminars. His major publications include:

Parent Training Today: A Social Necessity, one of the most comprehensive and authoritative books ever written on parent training.
Black Parenting: Strategies for Training, containing the ground-breaking research and ideas that went into the Effective Black Parenting Program.

The Power of Positive Parenting, a guidebook for parents that many consider to be the "manual" that should come with every child.
The CICC Discovery Tool for educating parents of young children about child development and about how to identify and help children who may have special needs.
Bringing Parenting Education Into Early Childhood Care and Education Systems, which describes a new role for child care professionals as Effective Parenting Advocates and a pioneering project that brought parenting education to over 20,000 parents through child care.

Other publications by Dr. Alvy have appeared on the editorial pages of metropolitan newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and in such professional journals as the American Psychologist and the Journal of Community Psychology. He is also the designer and author of An National Effective Parenting Initiative to make the United States of America a Model Child and Family Friendly Nation.

The parenting education programs and seminars that Dr. Alvy has authored and co-authored include the Center's trio of national model programs: Confident Parenting: Survival Skill Training, Effective Black Parenting and Los Niños Bien Educados. The latter two programs have become the most widely used culturally-specific parenting skill-building programs in the United States.

His expertise as a researcher and scientist has been acknowledged through research and demonstration grants from a variety of federal government agencies and from his being selected to serve on scientific review committees. Dr. Alvy has been a Principal Investigator on research projects sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, as well as being Principal Investigator on research projects funded by the First 5 LA Proposition 10 Commission to further validate The CICC Discovery Tool

Dr. Alvy has also distinguished himself as a creator and director of numerous community service projects to increase parental effectiveness and reduce child abuse, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, school failure and gang involvement. Projects that he has designed and directed have gained the support of various state and local funding bodies, and the support of over 75 private foundations and corporations, including the Ford Foundation, AT&T, Xerox, Annenberg, Mattel and Hearst.

Dr. Alvy was previously affiliated with Kedren Community Mental Health Center in South Central Los Angeles for seven years where he served as Director of Children's Services, and with the California School of Professional Psychology for 17 years where he was a Professor and Dean for Academic Affairs. He has also taught at other institutions, including UCLA and the California State University at Los Angeles.

Dr. Alvy has received numerous awards for his and CICC's accomplishments in improving the quality of child rearing in America, including being honored in the White House in 1995 as part of the First National Parent's Day Celebration, receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1997 from the State University of New York at Albany, where he received his doctorate, and earning the "Illuminating the Way to the New Millennium Award" from the Parenting Coalition International and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention in 1999.

Dr. Alvy continues to be an advocate for children's rights before government and civic bodies, and to appear on television and radio programs on child, family and parent training issues. He also continues to serve as a consultant on these matters to governmental agencies, corporations, news departments and film and television companies.

He draws inspiration and support from his wife, a special education and kindergarten teacher, and their two daughters, Lisa and Brittany.

Dr. Alvy now has his own website (www.DrAlvy.com) and his own blog (www.educatedparenting.com).