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Ba's Book Reviews

What parents are saying about Optimal Parenting:

 “I love the book.  It is rich and warm and intelligent. It is thorough and invites me to think deeply.  Maybe insists is a better word!  Dale is also reading it, so he effectively put in 2 labeled bookmarks for us to keep track of where each of us is, and already we have had such interesting conversations. I love reading your writing!!!  I love that I can hear your voice in it.  I tell my students all the time to let me hear their voice; don't edit it all out with facts and dry information.”           

-Kathy

 “It feels like you are taking parenting to a new level.  As much as it is a cultural job, it can also be a spiritual pursuit. And you make the case that we cannot be better parents than we are people and that putting positive parenting high on one’s list of accomplishments is a worthwhile endeavor. So as we become better parents, we become better people and our children have more possibilities of realizing more of their potential.”           

-Nita

 “Overall I am intellectually stimulated. Challenged to rethink my life. Inspired that parenting is a shared experience and not something I “have to do”. Because of the work of Natural Learning Rhythms I look forward to the days shared with my children. I am not afraid of what the future will bring.

Transition – What a picture to realize that each transition is a new birth with the preparation happening just like pregnancy. This is so real and vivid to me I will never forget it! I will refer back to this section often as our children are growing. Because I experienced 4 totally different pregnancies it is easy for me to grasp the idea that each child will have totally different transitions at each stage. Yet the notion that giving nourishment, as in pregnancy, is what is needed is so understandable and incredible at the same time!

Another note – I am fascinated with the reasonable-being because our society does not address this in the least bit. I am so lucky to have this information before my children are at this stage. Thank you!

You are the genius of our time. The work you and Josette have done will be a true inspiration as a way to live in relationship and that is what life is about. I believe this book will be read for many years to come.”           

-Susan

 “We love it.  The writing is excellent. It is clearly written and helps evoke our own inner wisdom in child rearing. My kids grew up on "natural learning rhythms" and I find "optimal parenting" to be, well, an optimal presentation of this entire paradigm.”

– Richo

“Optimal Parenting: Using Natural Learning Rhythms to Nurture the Whole Child, by Ba Luvmour, is the most complete guide to child development that I have ever discovered. With practical charts and checklists, you are able to understand clearly where your child is in his or her development, and how to anticipate their next age appropriate needs. I particularly like the “case histories” from realistic situations. Instead of the narrator telling you how to interpret a situation, you are aloud to absorb the information the way you process it, therefore taking away valuable insights meaningful to your own situation. Simply a great book -- carefully put together -- that is both informative and stimulating!”

-Nara

 "I have read many of the parenting books out there and this one stands above the rest. It doesn't just address problems or difficulties but instead offers concrete examples and beautiful ways to nurture the well-being in my child, in my family, in society and in myself. I found this so refreshing. The book is beautifully written and infinitely deep in what it calls parenting. It offers great narratives, examples in case history form and really easy to understand tables that help tie everything together in one place. I can not recommend this book more for parents, teachers and professions alike.”

–A.S.K.

What professionals are saying about Optimal Parenting:

"Optimal Parenting captures the rich essence of Ba's extensive and successful work with families and young people. As he and his associates have demonstrated repeatedly over the course of many years, the natural learning rhythms approach honors what is truly whole and human within us, and enables adults and children to grow and learn together joyfully. This book shatters our society's misconceptions about human development and gives parents and educators a new perspective that is as refreshing as it is powerful.”           

-Ron Miller, Ph.D., Goddard College

“Thank you so much for sending me a copy of your book, Optimal Parenting. I have read it and found much that I agree with.”

-Aletha Solter, Ph.D. Aware Parenting Institute

“Natural Learning Rhythms provides a good deal of the theoretical basis for our work at Stages of Learning, which has demonstrated significant frequency of student engagement for ‘feeling being’ students who often struggle in our public school classrooms.”

-Floyd Rumohr, President & CEO, Stages of Learning

 "Ba Luvmour's books uncovers the wellsprings that make our children who they are, and by doing so, equips us for the wondrous journey of human unfolding that being a family can be, if we allow it. But feeding our children the proper developmental noursihment, we feed ourselves as well."

- David H. Albert, Author, Have Fun. Learn Stuff. Grow. Homeschooling and the Curriculum of Love

"This is no handy, hip-pocket quick reference guide to parenting, but is a remarkable, extraordinary work embracing a very wide knowledge tempered by the wisdom of years of experience. The Luvmours have brought us a unique and invaluable insight into the child’s mind and development which is every bit as valuable for the opening it simultaneously offers parents concerning their own personal understanding, abilities, and life-responses. By striving to be an optimal parent as outlined here, a new world can open for the parent as well as the child. The Luvmours’ concept of rhythms of learning goes beyond Piaget and fills critical gaps, while the various 'typing' of children's personality-learning styles is original, fresh, and enlightening. May this work be widely read and closely followed."

- Joseph Chilton Pearce, Author