IT'S OK TO GO UP THE SLIDE

In this sequel to It's OK Not to Share, Heather Shumaker continues to overturn all the conventional rules of parenting.

Heather Shumaker has sparked much discussion with her "renegade rules for raising competent and compassionate kids." In this follow-up book, she takes on new hot-button issues like banning homework, technology use, and skipping kindergarten. Shumaker also offers broader guidance on how parents can control their own anger and move from an overscheduled life to one of more free play. Parenting can too often be reduced to shuttling kids between enrichment classes, but Shumaker challenges parents to reevaluate how they're spending their precious family time. This book helps parents help their kids develop important life skills in an age-appropriate way. Most important, parents must model these skills, whether related to money management, nutrition, housekeeping, developing charitable habits, or coping emotionally with setbacks. Sometimes being a good parent means breaking the rules.

Heather Shumaker is a journalist whose writing has appeared in Parenting, Pregnancy, and other publications. An advocate of free, unstructured play in homes and schools, she lives in northern Michigan with her husband and two children. She is the author of It’s Ok Not to Share, which Perigee published in 2012.