Why You Should Stop Yelling at Your Kids
by Stephen Marche
It doesn’t make you look authoritative. It makes you look out of control to your kids. It makes you look weak. Read more
by Stephen Marche
It doesn’t make you look authoritative. It makes you look out of control to your kids. It makes you look weak. Read more
by Heather Turgeon
Rewards and punishments are conditional, but our love and positive regard for our kids should be unconditional. Here’s how to change the conversation and the behavior. Read more
by Debbie Nathan, Mike Snedeker
Communities throughout the United States were convulsed in the 1980s and early 1990s by accusations, often without a shred of serious evidence, that respectable men and women in their midst many of them trusted preschool teachers secretly gathered in far reaching conspiracies to rape and terrorize children. In this powerful book, Debbie Nathan and Mike Snedeker examine the forces fueling this blind panic. Read more
by Anne A. Johnson Davis
When Anne A Johnson Davis was just three years old, her mother and stepfather began to physically, sexually and mentally torture her in the name of Satan. Until she ran away from home at 17, her parents and other cult members subjected her to satanic ritual abuse (SRA), a criminally inhumane and bizarre form of devil worship. Read more
by Caroline Fraser
Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills-an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise. Read more
by Richard E. Kelly
"Growing Up in Mama's Club" is a compelling, coming-of-age story about a boy who is a victim of sixteen years of emotional, religious abuse. His day-to-day life and his attempts to conform to a belief system at odds with his intellectual skills are at times both heart-rending and humorous. But his ultimate triumph over religious indoctrination should be inspirational for people of all ages, especially for anyone growing up in an abusive environment. Read more
by Marci A. Hamilton
There is a silent epidemic of childhood sexual abuse in the United States and a legal system that is not effectively protecting children from predators. Recent coverage of widespread abuse in the public schools and in churches has brought the once-taboo subject of childhood sexual abuse to the forefront. The problem extends well beyond schools and churches, though: the vast majority of survivors are sexually abused by family or family acquaintances with 90 percent of abuse never reported to the authorities. Read more
by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, and Juliana Buhring
The bestselling, devastating account of three sisters torn apart, abused and exploited at the hands of a community that robbed them of their childhood. It reveals three lives, separate but entwined, that have experienced unspeakable horror, unrelenting loyalty and unforgettable courage. Read more
by Mike Echols
For over twenty-five years, charismatic Pentecostal evangelist Brother Tony Leyva used Christianity, the Bible, and his status as an "anointed prophet of God" to gain access to, seduce, and sexually assault the young sons of his enthralled followers in twenty-three states. How could such heinous acts continue undetected for over two decades? Read more
by Marlene Winell
Leaving the Fold is a self-help book that examines the effects of authoritarian religion (fundamentalist Christianity in particular) on individuals who leave the faith. The concrete steps for healing are useful for anyone in recovery from toxic religion. Read more
by Keith Wright
As a pastor with 40 years of experience, Keith Wright came to realize that a dichotomy exists within the walls of many churches. While many churchgoers find the environment wonderfully embracing and supportive, the fact is that religion can offer both a positive and a negative experience. Religious abuse affects millions of church members and church leaders in every denomination. It can be blatant, but it can also be extremely subtle and unintentional. Keith Wright believes that only when we recognize and acknowledge the problem can we work toward positive change that allows us to truly benefit from the good. Recommended: chapter on religion and abuse of children (p. 61) Read more
by Sander J. Breiner
The author is a psychiatrist. He attempts here to study the family, sexual practices, and child-rearing customs in five cultures (those of Egypt, Greece, the ancient Hebrews, Rome, China), and to draw some insights from these histories. Read more
by Karen Armstrong
Through the Narrow Gate is Karen Armstrong's intimate memoir of life inside a Catholic convent. With refreshing honesty and clarity, the book takes readers on a revelatory adventure that begins with Armstrong's decision in the course of her spiritual training offers a fascinating view into a shrouded religious life, and a vivid, moving account of the spiritual coming age of one of our most loved and respected interpreters of religious. Read more
by William Coburn
The Spanking Room is the true story of a young boy's upbringing, and how the unorthodox doctrines of the Watchtower Society encourage violence against its most helpless members--the children. Read more
by Lucia Greenhouse
Lucia Ewing had what looked like an all-American childhood. She lived with her mother, father, sister, and brother in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis, where they enjoyed private schools, sleep-away camps, a country club membership, and skiing vacations. Surrounded by a tight-knit extended family, and doted upon by her parents, Lucia had no doubt she was loved and cared for. But when it came to accidents and illnesses, Lucia’s parents didn't take their kids to the doctor's office--they prayed, and called a Christian Science practitioner. Read more
by Marci A. Hamilton
Clergy sex abuse, polygamy, children dying from faith healing, companies that refuse to do business with same-sex couples, and residential neighborhoods forced to host homeless shelters - what do all of these have in common? They are all examples of religious believers harming others and demanding religious liberty regardless of the harm. This book unmasks those responsible, explains how this new set of rights is not derived from the First Amendment, and argues for a return to common-sense religious liberty. In straightforward, readable prose, God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty sets the record straight about the United States' move toward extreme religious liberty. Read more
by Robin Grille
Parenting for a Peaceful World is a fascinating look at how parenting customs have shaped societies and major world events. It reveals how children adapt to different parenting styles and how these early experiences underpin the adults they become. In this expansive book, Robin Grille draws on revolutionary new research to argue that the safeguarding of children’s emotional development is the key to creating a more peaceful and harmonious world. Read more
by Carol Delaney
Abraham on Trial questions the foundations of faith that have made a virtue out of the willingness to sacrifice a child. Through his desire to obey God at all costs, even if it meant sacrificing his son, Abraham became the definitive model of faith for the major world religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this bold look at the legacy of this biblical and qur'anic story, Carol Delaney explores how the sacrifice rather than the protection of children became the focus of faith, to the point where the abuse and betrayal of children has today become widespread and sometimes institutionalized. Read more
by Martin E. Marty
Much of today's writing on children treats the child of any age as a problem or a set of problems to be solved, effectively reducing the child to a complex of biological and chemical factors, explainable in scientific terms, or regarding children as objects of adult control. In contrast, Martin Marty here presents the child as a mystery who invokes wonder and elicits creative responses that affect the care provided him or her. Read more
by Karel Kurst-Swanger
Worship and Sin: Religion-Related Crime in the United States raises provocative questions about the role of religion in crime and criminal behavior. Arguing that religion-related crime should be classified as a distinct subset of crime worthy of continued investigation by scholars, this book brings together for the first time the disparate scholarly research related to various types of religion-related crime, presents numerous examples, and considers the practical and legal issues facing practitioners of various disciplines. Recommended: chapter on crimes against children chapter (p. 49) Read more
by Flora Jessop
The dramatic true story of how the author ultimately escaped and has been fighting against frustrating obstacles with hard fought successes in rescuing women and children from the FLDS. Read more
by Ron O'Grady
Since founding ECPAT, an international organization working to end child prostitution and pornography, in 1991, the author has sadly come to recognize that church leaders and representatives are not exempt from involvement in the sexual abuse of children. Although working in a secular and apolitical organization, the author's Christian belief and experience have informed this study of a deeply disturbing phenomenon. He seeks through unsensational language to expose the truth of the church's involvement and by so doing start the search for solutions. Read more
by Karyn B. Purvis, David R. Cross, Wendy Lyons Sunshine
The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family--and addressing their special needs--requires care, consideration, and compassion. Read more
by Jean La Fontaine
A number of cases of serious child abuse have resulted from beliefs that children may be possessed by evil spirits and may then be given the power to bewitch others. Misfortune, failure, illness and even death may be blamed on them. The 'cure', nowadays called deliverance rather than exorcism, is to expel the spirits, sometimes by violent means. This book draws together contributions on aspects of possession and witchcraft from leading academics and expert practitioners in the field. Read more
by Patricia Robinett
Genital mutilation in the USA has been a well-kept secret. "The Rape of Innocence" is an autobiographical account of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant woman who discovered she had been the victim of clitoridectomy as a child in Kansas in the 1950s. Read more
by Frank Bruni
The relentless crescendo of revelations of sexual abuse in the nation's Catholic churches has rocked the nation. Just how widespread is child sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy? And why hasn't the Catholic church done more to stop it? Read more
by Carolyn Holderread Heggen
What sets this book apart from the many others on the topic is the emphasis on how a church congregation can begin to work to heal the wounds of sexual abuse and prevent further abuses from happening. Church members often must, at the same time, offer love, understanding, and healing to survivors while confronting (and still loving) the perpetrator. Includes a forward by Marie M. Fortune. Read more
by Suzanne O'Malley
An investigative reporter offers a portrait of Andrea Yates and her drowning of her five young children, incorporating the information from more than two hundred interviews to reveal the inner workings of the case. Read more
by Alice Miller
The author examines the consequences of repression at personal and social levels, the causes of the physical and psychological harm done to children and how this can be prevented, and finally the new methods at our disposal for dealing with the consequences of infant traumas. Read more
by J. Eric Gentry
In this groundbreaking book, trauma expert J. Eric Gentry builds upon the pioneering insights of such luminaries as neuroscientist Stephen Porges, Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk to introduce Forward-Facing Trauma Therapy (FFTT), the next evolutionary leap in the treatment of traumatic stress. Unlike many traditional psychotherapies, FFTT eschews the assumption that psychological problems are caused by our faulty perceptions and skewed thought processes. Instead, FFTT addresses trauma and its destructive symptomology at its source our overcharged autonomic nervous systems and hypervigilant threat response resulting from our adaptation to painful past experiences. Read more
The focus of Roots of Empathy in the long term is to build capacity of the next generation for responsible citizenship and responsive parenting. In the short term, Roots of Empathy focuses on raising levels of empathy, resulting in more respectful and caring relationships and reduced levels of bullying and aggression. Read more
by Richard Schiffman
Some churches “weaponize scripture and religion to do very deep damage on the psyche,” one pastor says. Read more
by Faima Bakar
"Despite being molested by a priest as a child, I had no contentions with religion or other religious figures – they weren’t the problem." Read more
hild-Friendly Faith Project President Janet Heimlich addresses attendees at the organization's first conference on November 8, 2013. Janet explains that the event marks the beginning of a unique opportunity: to start a conversation about how to protect children from abuse and neglect in faith communities. (7:00) Read more
After learning about notorious clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse scandals and high-profile "faith healing" child-death cases, the public has come to understand that faith communities are not immune to child abuse and neglect. But can religious belief itself contribute to child maltreatment? In her compelling talk, Janet Heimlich will discuss a dark side of faith -- religious child maltreatment. She will explain how this form of abuse and neglect damages the lives of young people, which children are at the greatest risk, and what we can do to ensure that a religious upbringing is a nurturing experience for every child. (1:11:00) Read more
Janet Heimlich, author of "Breaking Their Will," talks about religious child maltreatment. (7:00) Read more
Janet Heimlich, author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, was the guest speaker at Atheists United. Her book is the first to take an in-depth look at child abuse and neglect caused by religious belief. Bethany Brittain joined Ms. Heimlich on stage to share her personal story about being abused as a child in the name of religion. (1:20:00) Read more
by Dale McGowan
In Faith and In Doubt helps partners navigate the complexities of their situation while celebrating the extraordinary richness it affords their relationship, their children, and those around them. Read more
by Dale McGowan
Raising Freethinkers covers every topic nonreligious parents need to know to help their children with their own moral, intellectual, and emotional development, including sound advice on religious-extended-family issues, death and life, secular celebrations, wondering and questioning, and more. Read more
by Harvey Karp
Perfect for expecting parents who want to prepare themselves for the challenging toddler years (which starts around eight months of age), this essential guide, a national bestseller by respected pediatrician and child development expert Dr. Harvey Karp, not only helps reduce tantrums but makes happy kids even happier by boosting patience, cooperation, and self-confidence. Read more
by Harvey Karp
Thousands of parents, from regular moms and dads to Hollywood superstars, have come to baby expert Dr. Harvey Karp to learn his remarkable techniques for soothing babies and increasing sleep. Now his landmark book—fully revised and updated with the latest insights into infant sleep, bedsharing, breastfeeding, swaddling, and SIDS risk—can teach you too! Read more
by Martha Sears, William Sears
Everything you need to know about discipline to raise a happy, well-adjusted, well-behaved child-from America's foremost baby and childcare experts Disciplining children means equipping them with the tools to succeed in life. In this unique guide, Dr. Bill and Martha Sears, the pediatrics specialists whose books on birth, babies, and parenting have become widely praised bestsellers, explain what you can do to shape your child's behavior so that good conduct comes naturally. Read more
by William Sears, Martha Sears
Dr. Bill and Martha Sears -- the doctor-and-nurse, husband-and-wife team who coined the term "attachment parenting" -- answer these and many more questions in this practical, inspiring guide. Attachment parenting is a style of parenting that encourages a strong early attachment, and advocates parental responsiveness to babies' dependency needs. Read more
by William Sears, Martha Sears
The Searses draw from their vast experience both as medical professionals and pas parents to provide comprehensive information on virtually every aspect of infant care. The Baby Book focuses on the essential needs of babies -- eating, sleeping, develipment, health, and comfort -- as it addresses the questions of greatest concern to today's parents. Read more
by Alfie Kohn
Unconditional Parenting addresses the ways parents think about, feel about, and act with their children. It invites them to question their most basic assumptions about raising kids while offering a wealth of practical strategies for shifting from "doing to" to "working with" parenting - including how to replace praise with the unconditional support that children need to grow into healthy, caring, responsible people. Read more
by Virginia Hamilton
A thought-provoking collection of twenty-five stories that reflect the wonder and glory of the origins of the world and humankind. With commentary by the author. “A must for mythology shelves.”--Booklist Read more
by Wendy Thomas Russell
"Relax, It's Just God" goes beyond the numbers to assist parents (and grandparents) who may be struggling to find the right time place, tone and language with which to talk about God, spirituality and organized religion. It encourages parents to promote religious literacy and understanding and to support kids as they explore religion on their own -- ensuring that each child makes up his or her own mind about what to believe (or not believe) and extends love and respect to those who may not agree with them. Read more
by Be-Asia D McKerracher
This candid parenting guide rejects the idea that parents need God to raise moral children. Full of practical advice drawn from nearly fifteen years of parenting and educating children, Be-Asia McKerracher offers parents an alternative to a strictly religious upbringing. Read more
by Jeffrey D. Jones
In this wise and witty book, author, youth expert, and practicing minister Jeffrey D. Jones brings to light the spiritual aspects of parenting that are often ignored by popular experts and gurus. Jones shows you how to attend to your own inner spiritual life and to the quality of your relationships within your family. Read more
by Morten Frisch, Brian Earp
A brief scientific and conceptual analysis of the CDC’s assessment of benefit versus risk of male circumcision. Read more
by Brian Earp, Rebecca Steinfield
Moral and legal opposition to the non-therapeutic cutting of children’s genitals has traditionally focused on female children. In recent years, however, a growing movement of scholars, activists, and individuals affected by childhood genital cutting have argued that all children, regardless of sex or gender, should be protected from such intimate violations. Read more
by Brian Earp
The non-therapeutic alteration of children’s genitals is typically discussed in two separate ethical discourses: one for girls, in which such alteration is conventionally referred to as “female genital mutilation” (or FGM), and one for boys, in which it is conventionally referred to as “male circumcision.” Read more
by Brian Earp, Robert Darby
An exploration of whether nontherapeutic male circumcision is legal before an age of consent paying special attention to the subjective, personal, and individually and culturally variable dimensions of judgments about benefit versus harm. Read more
by Amarillo Globe-News
Now that Boys Ranch is dealing with claims of alleged abuse that go back decades, it would be best to remember what this place has meant for thousands of youth — primarily boys — who had no other place to go. Read more
by Lisa Aronson Fontes
This expertly written book provides an accessible framework for culturally competent practice with children and families in child maltreatment cases. Numerous workable strategies and concrete examples are presented to help readers address cultural concerns at each stage of the assessment and intervention process. Professionals and students learn new ways of thinking about their own cultural viewpoints as they gain critical skills for maximizing the accuracy of assessments for physical and sexual abuse; overcoming language barriers in parent and child interviews; respecting families' values and beliefs while ensuring children's safety; creating a welcoming agency environment; and more. Read more
by George W. Holden
Written from a psychological perspective while integrating cross-disciplinary viewpoints, this fully updated Second Edition takes a parent-centered approach to exploring topics such as the reasons behind parental behavior, the effect parents and children have on one another, and social policy′s ability to help families. Read more
The Alliance creates opportunities for joint initiatives serving children and families in need. It improves the effectiveness of programs for children, increases efficiency and extends the reach and influence of the members by enhancing their individual and collective strengths. Read more
Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center works to end all forms of child maltreatment through education, training and prevention, while advocating for and serving children, adult survivors and communities. Read more
The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children is a nonprofit, national organization focused on meeting the needs of professionals engaged in all aspects of services for maltreated children and their families. Read more
The mission of the AVA is to advance health education and research on the recognition, treatment, and prevention of the health effects of violence and abuse across the lifespan. Read more
The Churches’ Network for Non-Violence was formed to broaden religious support for law reform to end corporal punishment of children and other cruel and humiliating forms of violence against children and to challenge faith-based justification for it. Read more
The Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children works with governments and non-governmental actors towards universal prohibition and elimination of corporal punishment of children. Read more
The mission of Lives in the Balance is to provide vital, accessible resources and programs to caregivers of behaviorally challenging kids; to bring the plight of these kids into the public consciousness; to address the systemic issues that cause many of these kids to slip through the cracks; and to promote parenting and disciplinary practices that foster the better side of human nature in all children. Read more
StopSpanking.org provides parenting information that helps clarify how early spanking and other punitive parenting practices can negatively impact healthy brain development. Read more
by Robin Fretwell Wilson, Shaakirrah Sanders
How to discipline one’s child, like decisions to treat “by faith alone,” run deep in religious and cultural belief systems. State regulation of child rearing not only impacts parents’ liberty but a community’s ability to maintain identity and transmit norms. Often, state solicitude for parental autonomy dictates children’s fate. This Chapter explores the limits of parental autonomy, showing that constitutional cases grant autonomy when no harm would result. Read more
by Christina Caron
The American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday issued its most strongly worded policy statement against spanking children. Read more
Recognizing that children require special protections due to their vulnerabilities, the Center for the Human Rights of Children (CHRC), a University Center of Excellence, was established in 2007 to pursue an agenda of interdisciplinary research, outreach and education, and advocacy to address critical and complex issues affecting children and youth, both locally and globally Read more
Vennie Kocsis interviews Janet Heimlich and Dr. Jaime Romo on the impact of religious child maltreatment on her program Survivor Voices. (1:34:00) Read more
High-profile cases such as the child sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and “faith healing” child death cases in some fundamentalist congregations have drawn attention to a serious yet misunderstood problem: religious child maltreatment or RCM. (1:04:00) Read more
Are you a survivor of religious child abuse or neglect? Which children are at risk today? These are questions our speaker answered during this enlightening Sunday Gathering. (26:00) Read more
by Valerie Torico
Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics which are related to harmful experiences with religion. Read more
by Hemant Mehta
Janet Heimlich is the founder of the Child-Friendly Faith Project and author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, both of which examine child abuse and neglect that is enabled by religious belief in the United States. Janet is also a reporter who has worked for NPR and written for a variety of publications. (Full disclosure, I’m on the advisory board for the Child-Friendly Faith Project.) I spoke with her about the way children suffer at the hands of religion, whether teaching kids about Hell constitutes abuse, and what atheists can do to help. Read more
by Paul Offit, M.D.
In Bad Faith, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Paul Offit gives readers a never-before-seen look into the minds of those who choose to medically martyr themselves, or their children, in the name of religion. Offit chronicles the stories of these faithful and their children, whose devastating experiences highlight the tangled relationship between religion and medicine in America. Religious or not, this issue reaches everyone—whether you are seeking treatment at a Catholic hospital or trying to keep your kids safe from diseases spread by their unvaccinated peers. Read more
by Paul Offit, M.D.
In 2014, California suffered the largest and deadliest outbreak of pertussis, also known as “whooping cough,” in more than fifty years. This tragedy was avoidable. An effective vaccine has been available since the 1940s. In recent years other diseases, like measles and mumps, have also made a comeback. The reason for these epidemics can be traced to a group whose vocal proponents insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that vaccines are poison. As a consequence, parents and caretakers are rejecting vaccines for themselves and their families. In Deadly Choices, infectious-disease expert Paul Offit takes a look behind the curtain of the anti-vaccine movement. What he finds is a reminder of the power of scientific knowledge, and the harm we risk if we ignore it. Read more
Child Honouring is a unifying vision by which societies can re-order their priorities, a central organizing principle for sustainable, peace-making cultures. The center advances Child Honouring as a universal ethic, an essential code of conduct for all to embrace. Read more
Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC) is a non-profit organization founded to secure equal protection for, and broaden judicial and public recognition of, children’s legal and human rights to bodily integrity and self-determination. Read more
Dr. Paul Offit talks about the importance of ensuring that all children are permitted needed medical care, even if their caretakers assert that their religious beliefs conflict with that need. (2:00) Read more
This presentation will feature a panel of parents who were raised in unhealthy, authoritarian communities or have raised their children in such environments. (1:53:00) Read more
Unity of Austin's Youth and Family Ministry Director Genevieve Saenz talks about what it was like to participate in the CFFP's Discussion Series, which is the first phase of its comprehensive Child-Friendly Faith Communities Designation Program. (5:00) Read more
The Designation Program is a unique curriculum designed specially for faith communities. Benefits include increasing understanding about child development, maltreatment, and protection. (4:00) Read more
On February 11, 2016, experts on faith, medicine, and children's rights gave a presentation in Boise, Idaho, to discuss the problem of "faith healing" child medical neglect and the need to repeal dangerous religious exemptions. (1:05:00) Read more
This talk discusses how incidents of domestic violence against women affect the well-being of children. (1:06:00) Read more
In this presentation, Mr. Hassan describes how people are recruited into a wide range of cult groups, including those that engage in human trafficking, and how they are indoctrinated with different techniques of undue influence, such as covert hypnosis and phobia programming. (48:00) Read more
This presentation covers the barriers faith communities experience when discussing child maltreatment, the risks to survivors and religious institutions of not having those conversations, and the benefits to having those conversations. (1:09:00) Read more
Mr. Singer discusses strategies that he employs to help the faith and child protection communities work together to help children and families struggling with issues of abuse and neglect. (48:00) Read more
Rev. Ross, who co-founded Midwives on Missions of Service, explains how the organization’s educational efforts have empowered the midwives to choose to stop performing female genital cutting (FGC). This presentation describes the practice of FGC, the practitioners, and a healthy approach to making change. Read more
Law professor Marci Hamilton, a leading expert on such legal issues, will explain how statutes such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its state counterparts have lowered legal barriers on religious believers’ illegal conduct. (1:00:00) Read more
Therapy is an essential part of the healing process for those who have suffered the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. Yet many survivors don’t know where to turn to find those services. David Pittman—a survivor himself—founded Together We Heal for that very purpose. (45:00) Read more
In this interview, Janet Heimlich, author of Breaking Their Will, discusses religious abuse and mistreatment of children. (20:00) Read more