Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads

Book excerpt: What happens to Queen Bees and Wannabes when they grow up? Even the most well-adjusted moms and dads can experience peer pressure and conflicts with other adults that make them act like they’re back in seventh grade. In Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads, Rosalind Wiseman gives us the tools to handle difficult situations involving teachers and other parents with grace. Reassuring, funny, and unfailingly honest, Wiseman reveals: • Why PTA meetings and Back-to-School nights tap into parents’ deepest insecurities • How to recognize the archetypal moms and dads—from Caveman Dad to Hovercraft Mom • How and when to step in and step out of your child’s conflicts with other children, parents, teachers, or coaches • How to interpret the code phrases other parents use to avoid (or provoke) confrontation • Why too many well-meaning dads sit on the sidelines, and how vital it is that they step up to the plate • What to do and say when the playing field becomes an arena for people to bully and dominate other kids and adults • How to have respectful yet honest conversations with other parents about sex and drugs when your values are in conflict • How the way you handle parties, risky behavior, and academic performance affects your child • How unspoken assumptions about race, religion, and other hot-button subjects sabotage parents’ ability to work together Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads is filled with the kind of true stories that made Wiseman’s New York Times bestselling book Queen Bees & Wannabes impossible to put down. There are tales of hardworking parents with whom any of us can identify, along with tales of outrageously bad parents—the kind we all have to reckon with. For instance, what do you do when parents donate a large sum of money to a school and their child is promptly transferred into the honors program–while your son with better grades doesn’t make the cut? What about the mother who helps her daughter compose poison-pen e-mails to yours? And what do you say to the parent-coach who screams at your child when the team is losing? Wiseman offers practical advice on avoiding the most common parenting “land mines” and useful scripts to help you navigate difficult but necessary conversations. Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads is essential reading for parents today. It offers us the tools to become wiser, more relaxed parents–and the inspiration to speak out, act according to our values, show humility, and set the kind of example that will make a real difference in our children’s lives. Also available as a Random House AudioBook and as an eBook