I couldn't get through it. It didn't seem like it was written to be a practical guide to raising happy kids, which is what I thought it was when I bought it.

Although this book is primarily about parenting and children, I found the models presented in this book fascinating and impactful. I've been a more optimistic person since reading, and I recommend this book to anyone struggling with negative thinking.

One of the best parenting books I’ve ever read

I wish I’d found this book earlier in my journey as a parent, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to pass along the program to my early teen now. This program does a great job giving practical solutions and exercises that allow both children and adults to practice assessing situations and making productive choices instead of following the path of cynicism and learned helplessness. Sadly, optimism gets a bad rap, and the word itself has morphed into one that connotes unicorn rainbow farts and cotton candy clouds, but the author does a good job differentiating between optimism and realism, even explaining the (minimal) caveats of an optimistic outlook.

Interesting ideas and an accessible program based on cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm implementing some of these techniques on myself and then I'll try some of the exercises with the kids.

The best book (not one of the best books) I ever read. Martin makes positive psychology such an interesting topics with scientific proof application - simple tools but one should master if you want to flourish.

I think the concepts taught in this book are valuable in raising a resilient child. Seligman talks about our shift away from a society in which we accomplish to a "feel good" society and discusses the damage that it can do to our children. He gives a lot of examples of the program they've created for schools and gives many of these exercises to his readers. Having children who seem to be naturally pessimistic, I hope this will help with their black and white thinking patterns. I'll have to update this once I give it a good go.

I love the research that went into this program. I’m very into the topic and plan to use the methods. I have to acknowledge that this particular book was written in 1996, so since that time, the author, Martin Seligman, has made a lot of progress in the field he founded, Positive Psychology. For a parent to implement this program, they would need to do some updating to superficial elements to keep it feeling current (names like “Positive Penny” will ring as old-timey to kids today), but the same will be true of any book from the era. For someone interested in this topic, I might refer them to the Penn Resiliency Program, which Seligman developed and which has been implemented many times in the subsequent years, as it has a broader scope and more multifaceted treatment outcomes.

This is an excellent book. Evidenced based self help, and although aimed at training kids, it can also be aimed at adults. I started reading this as a pessimist, but by the end, was a little more optimistic. I should probably have read this 30 years ago....Recommended.

In 1997, our oldest son was 9 with a prickly personality beginning to manifest itself. He always seemed so negative that I was worried about him being on the road to depression and problems with friends. I happened upon this book and I cannot tell you how it totally changed my perception of our son. We were so worried about his ability to take direction, make good choices, think before he would act and as he seemed to just crash through life - instituting consequences would have him just digging in his heels. In fact, there is nothing more frustrating than telling a child, "If you continue, we will restrict/take away/refuse to allow (fill in the blank), only to be met with, "Well, then I'll play with (blank) or I will still have (blank) or I will make (blank). It seemed no matter what we did, he always had a workaround - chin out and arms folded. We worried that by escalating the punishment just to try to get some acknowledgement or feeling of remorse was not only a losing battle but damaging to him and his self esteem. This didn't happen with his brothers and sister so he was feeling singled out. Worried about depression in children, I bought this book and used the Resilience Assessment tool. He scored off the charts for resilience! What a 180 I had to do. I stopped looking at him in terms of needing to be fixed and started appreciating his tenacity and ability to overcome adversity by getting going. This has proved true in his adult life, as well. Nothing gets him down for long. He's still prickly about it but damned if he doesn't always work things through to an alternative that works for him when the original path does not. I have recommended this book ever since to any parent who is worried about their children and how they handle their emotions and life. As others have stated, it is very useful for adults, as well. I learned so much about each of my children and their ability to bounce back.

Perhaps it is unfair for me to apply the same criteria to this book as I would to something more scholarly, but Seligman's discussion of the increasing prevalence of depression among children was pretty unsatisfactory. He discounts the likely affect of the decreased stigma for acknowledging depression. He also ignores strong cross cultural research that indicates that societies with a high achievement focus and communal values also have high rates of depression and suicide among pre-teen and teenaged kids.

Physical. 4.5 stars. This has sat on my shelf unread for years because I believed it to be a dense read filled with scientific jargon. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this was not at all the case. With highlighter in hand, I was able to pull many practical steps and useful titbits which will certainly inform my future teaching practice.

2024 TBR Challenge.