The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children by Wendy Mogel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was disappointed in this book. I loved the title and the idea of it; it’s been on my ‘to-read’ list for a while. But it wasn’t really what I expected. Don’t get me wrong, there are many good and interesting ideas. Mogel connects worthwhile parental advice to Jewish wisdom and teaching. However, this connection seemed somewhat superficial. The parental advice is mostly conventional and typical of parenting books. The Jewish teachings often felt like an afterthought.
Two other aspects of the book led me to an overall negative review. First, Mogel is a clinical psychologist and uses her cases and experiences to illustrate her advice. That is fairly typical for books like this, but nonetheless, it is too anecdotal for me. I would have liked the anecdotes to be more grounded in some data.
Second, the religiousness of the book was surprising and put me off. Now, with a book with a subtitle of “Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children”, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. As a secular Jew, I see the value of Jewish teachings without a lot of God-talk. I expected something more along the lines of using Talmudic teachings or other forms of Jewish wisdom to illustrate points. Mogel, though, goes beyond this towards advising particular religious practices as part of her parental advice. I don’t want to overplay this. Mogel wasn’t proselytizing or making constant references to God. This aspect was more subtle and something that I was more sensitive too.
There is some very good advice in these pages. In particular, her advice on the need to avoid overindulging and overprotect children is important and she offers some practical tips to help parents on this front. But overall, I am not comfortable recommending this book without the caveats about my concerns raised above.
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