With All Due Respect is a handbook for parents navigating the difficulties of the tween and teen years. Roesner and Hitchcock help parents identify what successful relationships look like and give easy-to-follow lessons in enforcing rules, communicating lovingly, resetting relationships, overcoming fears and exhaustion, and handling rebellion. Each day features a story every mom can relate to, down-to-earth questions to think about, and a prayer to launch an action plan. As a result, the reader gains new skills and perspective, greater strength, and an ability to live out faith daily as never before. With All Due Respect is for all parents seeking not only to connect more deeply with and positively impact their teens and tweens, but also to grow more deeply in faith through the process.
What I Loved: I haven’t read many…or any parenting books. I was drawn to pick up With All Due Respect because I find myself with a twelve-year-old. From the moment I looked into this one, their approach really stood out to me. I loved how they didn’t tell you how to manipulate your child with a bunch of do’s and don’t’s but they took the time to look at the parenting foundation. The book is centered more around the idea of what you can change about yourself and how you relate to others, namely your teen.
Each section is divided up as a dare and it focuses on behavioral issues…of the parent. I love how they dig below the surface into why we may act the way we do by examining our relationship with God and our own childhood.
After some explanation or a short “family moment” (which reads like a mini story with teen drama and mommy meltdowns) the section explains how the parent could focus on certain areas of their own life and in turn improve situations with their teen. They offer up a number of dares that are simple, thoughtful, and applicable. The section then ends with a prayer.
Everything I found here directed the parent’s heart back to Christ. I was greatly impressed and would highly recommend it.
Quote: “But often we forget about setting expectations for ourselves as parents. We nag, demand, and impose rules on our children, hoping to see change, only to find ourselves caught up in the same cycle of disappointment and fear that our dreams for our kids will never materialize. What we sometimes forget – or perhaps haven’t yet realized is that we can break out of that cycle if we are willing to let go of our expectations for our kids and instead choose to set new expectations for ourselves.”
Rating: I’m giving With All Due Respect 5 stars.
~I received a copy from Book Look Bloggers. I was not compensated for this review or required to give a favorable one. All thoughts are my own.
Christian Author: A.M. Heath 