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New book from Vermont author Vicki Hoefle!

"Bold, clear and lifesaving. Vicki Hoefle is in the business of helping parents grow great grown-ups." That's the cover quote on Vicki's new book The Straight Talk on Parenting: A No-Nonsense Approach to How to Grow a Grown-Up.

2015 is turning into the year when all my favorite parenting authors are writing sequels. Vicki's first book, Duct Tape Parenting, came out the same summer my first book It's OK Not to Share did. Readers are clamoring for more.

And they should. Vicki understands that the struggles we face every day - morning out-the-door rush, meals, bedtime, backtalk, sibling squabbles, messy rooms and more - are all fundamentally caused by 1) fractured relationships, or 2) a child's quest for independence that gets thwarted by parents and lack of training, or 3) both.

She's in it for the long-haul. Behavior struggles that seem to many parents as daily headaches, Vicki sees as chances for developing lifelong character traits, independence and healthy relationship models. Lasting change takes time and means making a switch to intentional parenting. If this sounds daunting, it shouldn't. Vicki's method is straight-forward and far easier than a lifetime of parent-child struggles.

The strength of her book lies in the many examples and how the approach works for all ages.  Whether you have a toddler or a teenager, this book can guide you through making a change. She looks at teens on the phone past midnight with the same lens as toddlers not getting ready in the morning. No, the solutions are not identical, and the same issue would be resolved differently by different families, but the process is the same. It starts with examining your own parenting behavior. Read enough of these examples and you will be saying - wow - I didn't know life could be any other way. It's like having Vicki in the room with you.

I love this book . It gives practical, yet individual help, for every family. And that quote on the cover? It's what I told Vicki when I read the advanced copy.

Want to read Vicki Hoefle's new book? Add a comment to enter the Straight Talk on Parenting book Give-Away!

What's your biggest daily parenting struggle? What behavior would you love to transform? Add a comment and your name will be entered in the Book Give-Away.  Give-Away ended Monday, June 1 at 12 noon ET. Winning name was chosen by a random number generator.

Being a child should give you a free ticket to read ALL children's books. No "reading level" scores required.

We're in a mad rush to speed up childhood again. This time rushing them through the delights of children's literature.

Children are asked to read "at their level." For schools participating in the Accelerated Reader program (owned by a publicly traded corporation), reading level is all about words, not ideas, storyline or emotional maturity. A child who's a strong reader is expected to reach higher and higher for ever more complicated text regardless of social and emotional understanding.

It's taken some digging for me to realize how books are labeled with an AR number. A computer scans them. The scan comes up with a number considering three factors: sentence length, word length and word difficulty level. Nothing about what topics the book covers, what big ideas are inside, how deeply characters are developed, how skilled the writing is, or whether the child can emotionally handle the book.

As a writer of children's Middle Grade fiction, this is baffling to me. Books are all about story, characters and ideas. There's an extremely precious window of time for children to delve into the enormous wealth of children's books - fun ones and literary ones. No child can possibly fit all the good ones in. It's short, this magical time of childhood book reading. We certainly don't want to speed things up.

My 10-year-old reads regularly and loves the full range of children's books. But next year he'll be expected to abandon a good chunk of children's literature that is considered too easy for him. Accelerated Reader wants him to move on to books for adults and teenagers.

Choosing a book for the right age and interest level is crucial and can be a delicate art. But it needs to be tied to Thinking Level, not always reading level. Thinking Level often works best by reading aloud. When you read aloud to a child, you can introduce books that match or challenge the child's Thinking Level. Teachers can do this with class read-aloud books. Families can do this by reading to kids who already read - kids ages 8-18.

Thinking level does not move in a straight line, always marching to a higher number. It lets kids move in circles around their emotional maturity. What delights them. What strikes them. What gives them new thoughts. What gives them pleasure.

Children desperately need pleasure reading to become lifelong readers. Let them dip into books that are supposedly below them. Once they can read independently, kids should be able to move freely within the vast treasure trove of children's literature. If they like a book, it's a good book. It's an age-appropriate book. There must be no stigma in reading a book that's "too easy."

When kids read books we are teaching writing. That's how children learn to frame a story. In AR, books with flat characters, such as 39 Clues, score in the same range as books with deep characters, like Charlotte's Web.

When kids read books they learn about moral dilemmas. That's one important way children develop ethics. Books that are fluffy and fun, (Mary Poppins; Peter Pan) score much higher in AR than books that help kids grapple with deep life issues, like mortality and discrimination (Tuck Everlasting; Sounder). Fluffy, magical books are fantastic for kids to read, but AR scores make us fixate on the number. Complex ideas are important, not just complex sentences.

The more I learn about Accelerated Reader, the more I dislike it. Remember to turn to children's librarians and other skilled adults to guide children's reading and book selection. Allow children to spend as much time as they can with children's books, including picture books. No good book is too young.

Don't accelerate reading. Wallow awhile. There's no rush.

More renegade ideas at heathershumaker.com

New book to help sibling struggles. Book giveaway!

When people heard I was writing a sequel, they begged me to write about siblings. Sibling fights and hard feelings seem to be a near-universal struggle for families. Luckily, there are good resources out there, including Faber and Mazlish's classic Siblings Without Rivalry and now Dr. Laura Markham's new book showing you how to raise siblings who can be friends for life.

Dr. Laura's first book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Child, focuses on emotional understanding - both for the parent and the child. Her new sibling book is called Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life. Today I'm partnering up with Dr. Laura to offer a free book giveaway of her new book - AND - sharing a free audio recording of an interview between the two of us.

In case you're wondering, I met Dr. Laura at a recent conference for preschool teachers and parents in sunny Silicone Valley. We both had a great time at the conference, aptly called "Unplug & Play."

Here's what I like about Dr. Laura's new book -

It gives sibling advice for parents of older kids as well as parents with new babies. Whatever stage you're in when it comes to siblings, there's a section just for you.

Dr. Laura understands that emotions are at the heart of sibling behavior. Sometimes our own parental emotions are involved, too. We have the power to stabilize family harmony or feed the flames.

It covers all the common sibling battles - from who gets to push the elevator button to kids who say "I hate my brother/sister."

Dr. Laura is one more voice who promotes renegade sharing - turn taking, and trusting children to know when they're done with a toy. In fact, she even devotes a chapter to the "It's OK Not to Share" philosophy and calls me a radical. What's not to like?

Dr. Laura's book comes out May 5. It's available for pre-order now. The advantage of pre-ordering is you get a bonus gift of her audio course, Peaceful Parenting.

Audio Recording - Interview with Dr. Laura and Heather

Listen to this 30-minute interview recorded just for you! Dr. Laura Markham and Heather Shumaker share wisdom on conflict, feelings and siblings.

Ready to enter the book giveaway? Share your sibling experience or just enter a comment. (The winning name will be selected on April 23, 2015 at noon EDT using a random number generator.) The book giveaway is now over. You can still pre-order or order the book anytime.

Find out how radical real sharing is.

New book to help sibling struggles. Book giveaway!