Some very sound ideas and thoughts from a controversial group. ( )

Reclaiming Childhood in a Hostile World

Children are special and need to be treated as such, raised with love and discipline, taught with respect as well as being taught to respect others. Children have a sense of wonder about them. They are curious, wanting to explore the world they live in. They are usually filled with joy.

Busy-ness, two parents having to work, single parent households, schools inundated with testing, strict structure of the curricula have left children on the short end of many, many sticks. They are losing precious time and needed attention from parents, teachers, and so many others who care about them, or would care about them.

This beautiful little book should be read by every parent, teacher, and anyone else who cares about our world's children. The kids deserve our best, including love, time, education, guidance, discipline, and reverence.
Mr. Arnold clearly sees the ways of today that surround childhood. Some things are good, helping to maintain innocence that childhood 'should' hold. He also clearly sees the turbulence of the world and how those ways affect childhood. This turbulence wraps around the lives of all of us, but children need to be protected from so much these days. Sadly, they are not. He points out how our children are jettisoned into the world without the safeguards that they need to keep their innocence. He sees this in the home, in the schools, in stores, on television, and so much more.

Mr. Arnold calls us to revere our children:

"Our response upon encountering a child must be nothing less than reverence. Perhaps because the word sounds old-fashioned, its true meaning has been blurred. Reverence is more than just love. It includes an appreciation for the qualities children possess (and which we ourselves have lost), a readiness to rediscover their value, and the humility to learn from them.

"Reverence is also an attitude of deep respect,...."

We each have a part to play in the raising of children, whether we have our own, care for or about others' children, or even just caring about all of the children of this world. Adults in society need to restore the reverence for life and for one another.

Parenting should be a model for so many things: respect, compassion, love, integrity, healthy relationships, gratitude. Teaching children how to give rather than want, want, want, is vital to their mature adulthood, yet the desire to get seems to be such a decisive factor for both children and adults these days. Oh, that we would open our eyes and change.
The hope that I see through this powerful little book is that each one of us -- parents, teachers, counselors, anyone who works with children -- can help to restore "every child's right to the joy and wonder of childhood." Every one of us can engage in relationships and modeling that will share a better way for this world where children live and grow. Value, love, nurture, respect, reverence, and joy can be shown so that these little ones can grasp the fact that this is who they are. Who they are is not what they do nor what they want.

The chapters in this book include:

The World Needs Children
Play is a Child's Work
Great Expectation
Screening Out
Material Child
Actions, Not Words
Guidance to Grow
In Praise of Difficult Children
Discovering Reverence
Tomorrow Comes
This books makes me sad that this is the world in which these young things are brought up within, yet also gives me all the more reason to tutor with the love that God has given me. I love the children that He gives to me and I want to be the best steward I can in the short time I have them in my life. Over the years of teaching, being a children's librarian, and now a tutor, I have had many children. They were given to me to teach and love and respect. I have done my best even though I did not always have this information in my back pocket. I just knew that this is how I was to be with each child. Thank You, Father, for gifting me with the tools to do the task to which You called me.

Gabriela Mistral writes:

"Many things can wait. Children cannot. Right now their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, and their senses are being developed. To them we cannot answer, "'Tomorrow.'"

Thus the title of the book: "Their name is Today."

They are right now, in this moment, Today!

Awards:

Christian Small Published Book of the Year - 2015 (Christian Education Division)

Foreword Reviews' 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Finalist (Family & Relationships (Adult Nonfiction)

Author

"People have come to expect sound advice from Johann Christoph Arnold, an award-winning author with over a million copies of his twelve books in print in more than twenty languages. A noted speaker and writer on marriage, parenting, and end-of-life issues, Arnold is a senior pastor of the Bruderhof, a movement of Christian communities. With his wife, Verena, he has counseled thousands of individuals and families over the last forty years.
"Arnold’s message has been shaped by encounters with great peacemakers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, César Chavez, and John Paul II. Together with paralyzed police officer Steven McDonald, Arnold started the Breaking the Cycle program, working with students at hundreds of public high schools to promote reconciliation through forgiveness. This work has also brought him to conflict zones from Northern Ireland to Rwanda to the Middle East. Closer to home, he serves as chaplain for the local sheriff’s department.

"Born in Great Britain in 1940 to German refugees, Arnold spent his boyhood years in South America, where his parents found asylum during the war; he immigrated to the United States in 1955. He and his wife have eight children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They live in upstate New York." from Plough Publishing House @ http://www.plough.com/en/authors/a/johann-christoph-arnold ( )

I received this book through Early Reviewers and owe a review on that basis, but I hesitated to post a review because I couldn't quite follow the argument of this book. There were many interesting anecdotes, much description of the problem, and a lot of truisms about childhood, but if there were concrete recommendations or a program to follow, I failed to grasp it. ( )

Their Name is Today is a quick read, full of common-sense reminders of why it is important to provide structure for children and then give them the freedom to play and explore within that structure. Arnold doesn't plow a lot of new ground, but he offers dozens of real-people stories that make his lessons memorable. ( )

I think this book was not very important for me presently.It is necessarily for any parents who have children and they cant deal with them in wright way. Johann Christoph give them lots of advises to start communicating with their children and another ways to discover what their children like and wish. ( )