Book Nook - The Progressive Parent: Harnessing the Power of Science and Social Justice to Raise Awesome Kids

Many adults wonder how they can raise kids to be well-adjusted and also good citizens. A soon-to-be-published book aims to help parents.  

THE PROGRESSIVE PARENT: Harnessing the Power of Science and Social Justice to Raise Awesome Kids (Hanover Square Press; pub: 8/6) is informed by author Kavin Senapathy’s (she/they) experiences as a child of immigrants and a nonbinary person of color. She is an award-winning science journalist and the founder of SciMoms, a non-profit organization dedicated to the pursuit of evidence-driven parenting.

The book covers a lot of different topics, preparing families to discuss systemic issues that affect race and gender. It focuses on supporting everyone in the community. It also touches on how science can help make caregiving decisions, environmental issues, feminism, and more.

There definitely were viewpoints in the book that I didn't 100% agree with, but overall, I found it be an excellent resource, and one where I could take parts of it with a grain of salt. If there was one thing I would have liked to see more of in the book, it would have been the inclusion of neurodivergence - I would have rather seen that than some of the smaller issues that got brought up in the book. However, I completely understand why race and gender were a bigger piece of the book from the author's viewpoint.

Like many parenting books, you may not use 100% of what it says, but it's still definitely worth the read!