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Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine Paperback – March 8, 2022

by Michele Borba Ed D. (Author)

4.6 925 ratings

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The bestselling author of UnSelfie offers 7 teachable traits that will safeguard our kids for the future.

We think we have to push our kids to do more, achieve more, BE more. But we’re modeling the wrong traits—like rule-following and caution—and research shows it’s NOT working. This kind of “Striver” mindset isn’t just making kids unhappier, says Dr. Michele Borba…it’s actually the opposite of what it takes to thrive in the uncertain world ahead.

Thrivers are different: they flourish in our fast-paced, digital-driven, often uncertain world. Why? Through her in-depth research, Dr. Borba discovered that the difference comes down not to grades or test scores, but to seven character traits that set Thrivers apart—confidence, empathy, self-control, integrity, curiosity, perseverance, and optimism. The even better news: these traits can be taught to children at any age…in fact, parents and educations must do so.

In Thrivers, Dr. Borba offers practical, actionable ways to develop these traits in children from preschool through high school, showing how to teach kids how to cope today so they can thrive tomorrow.

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336 pages
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English
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G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date

March 8, 2022
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5.41 x 0.69 x 8.17 inches
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0593085299
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978-0593085295
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Advance Praise for Thrivers

“People say, ‘I wish kids would come with a manual.’ Well now they do. If you want to get parenting right, pick up this book.” – Dr. Phil

“Thrivers shows the urgency in updating current parenting and educational practices to follow science so children will have the potential to thrive and become their personal best.” —Psychology Today

“Thrivers offers both science-based information and respectful, practical, and effective tools. Full of activities and ideas to cultivate the skills and mindset kids need to thrive, Borba encourages parents to use everyday moments to respond in ways that build relational and neural connections to promote optimal development, independence, and success. More than ever, our children need us to parent in ways that promote growth and resilience in the face of adversity, and Thrivers can serve as an essential guide.” --Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Whole-Brain Child, No-Drama Discipline, The Yes Brain, & The Power of Showing Up, and author of The Bottom Line for Baby

“Thrivers is a must-read for parents and anyone who works with kids. It provides actionable tips and insights that will help adults give kids the tools they need to live their best lives.” –Amy Morin, author of 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do

“Dr. Michele Borba combines her deep understanding of children with decades of research to offer the wise, practical guidance that parents urgently need today. Thrivers lays out clear, actionable, age-by-age steps for raising children of character. In doing so, this timely and important book focuses our attention where it truly belongs: on who--not what--our children will become.” --Lisa Damour, PhD, author of Untangled and Under Pressure

“Michele Borba is the coach, mentor, and motivator that today’s parents crave. This brilliant guide—full of heart and backed by research—redefines success and shows us how to raise happier, healthier kids who will become champions of the things that last and matter. Dr. Borba tells us that raising Thrivers may be our greatest legacy as parents, and then she offers practical, actionable steps to make this vision a reality. I feel better equipped to lead my children after reading this game-changing book, and you will too.” –Kari Kampakis, author of Love Her Well: 10 Ways to Find Joy and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter

“Thrivers helps us to recognize that resilient kids are not simply born but are made. With the world in unprecedented distress, it is our job to make sure that our kids are prepared not only with high grades or prestigious college acceptances, but with the mental toughness, moral strength, and self-awareness that times of great challenge demand. If you add one book to your parenting bookshelf this year, make it Thrivers.” –Madeline Levine, Ph.D., author of The Price of Privilege, Teach Your Children Well, and Ready or Not

“There’s a huge gap between what we, as parents, say we want for our children (to be good people) and what our kids say we want for them (achievement). This book is the absolutely perfect book to help us close that gap, to help our children thrive and be all they can be!” --Ellen Galinsky, author of Mind in the Making: The Seven Life Essential Skills Every Child Needs

“Thrivers is the resource I’ve yearned for as a parent and teacher, an evidence-based, deeply researched instruction manual for helping kids thrive despite–and even because of–adversity.” –Jessica Lahey, author of The Gift of Failure

“Thrivers is a call to action. Our children are hurting, and Thrivers shows you the cost -- not only in accurately describing the challenges our children face but also showing how to make it better. I urge any person who cares about children and the health of our communities to read Thrivers and apply the wisdom and common sense advice you will find in its pages to every aspect of your life.” –Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, Masterminds & Wingmen, and Owning Up.

"Thrivers brilliantly weaves together research and stories that grab your heart as they teach you how to be the parent you hope to be--a stunning master class in parenting, from pre-K through adulthood. Dr. Borba shows us how to raise a generation of Thrivers our world so desperately needs." --Catherine Steiner-Adair, Ed.D., author of The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age

“Thrivers is the North Star every parent needs to point kids toward happiness, purpose, and true success. Emotional resilience can be taught, and Dr. Borba is the consummate teacher.” –Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., author of Freeing Your Child from Anxiety and Freeing Your Child from Negative Thinking

“Thrivers can be summed up in one word, POWERFUL. In a world that is in crisis, with a generation that is emotionally crumbling, Borba gives us hope as well as the tools to help give our children and teens the moral courage they need to flourish in an unpredictable life. We must turn our strivers into thrivers! A mandatory read for every person who cares about raising kind, compassionate, and successful children.” --Sue Scheff, author of Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate

About the Author

Michele Borba, EdD, is the author of UnSelfie: Why Empatheic Kids Succeed in Our All-About Me World, and is an internationally renowned educational psychologist and an expert in parenting, bullying, and character development. She is a regular NBC contributor who appears regularly on Today and has been featured as an expert on Dateline, The View, Dr. Phil, NBC Nightly News, Fox & Friends, Dr. Oz, and The Early Show, among many others. She lives in Palm Springs, California, with her husband, and is the mother of three grown sons.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Running on Empty: We’re Raising a Generation of Strivers, Not Thrivers

“It’s like we’re being produced to be test takers. We’re missing the pieces on how to be people.”

—Aaron, twelve, Los Angeles

Our kids are in trouble.

That simple, terrifying fact was brought home to me when I reached sixteen-year-old Eva via phone at seven o’clock on a Sunday evening. She sounded stressed, and I asked if there was a better time to chat.

“No, my schedule is always jammed,” she said, “and I’d love to talk about what it’s like to be a teen these days.”

Eva hardly looks like a kid most of us would worry about. She lives in an affluent area near Newport Beach, California, and attends a posh private school. She realizes that she’s privileged. Her dream is to be accepted into a top-tier college with a Division 1 women’s swim team; UCLA and University of Texas are her first picks.

So Eva wakes up at 4:00 a.m. each weekday for her 5:00 a.m. private swim practice, and then heads to school. She’s an honor student with a 4.3 grade point average and takes four AP classes plus French III and physics honors. After school there are two more hours of swim practice with her team; once a week is school newspaper and student government. She’s home at 6:30 p.m., has a quick family meal, and then has three to four hours of homework and thirty minutes of SAT test-taking practice.

“I got a 1250 last time and need to improve by at least a hundred points to have any chance of getting into my dream colleges,” she explained. She finally heads to bed at midnight.

I was weary just listening. Eva averages five hours of sleep a night (eight to ten hours are recommended, but only 15 percent of teens come close), so she is sleep-deprived.

“What do you do for fun?” I asked.

“I’m wiped out most of the time so I try to connect with friends on social media.” She laughed. “I know I’m fortunate to attend a great school and my parents love me, but I worry about disappointing them if I don’t get into Stanford—that’s where they want me to go.” And the teen admitted that she was not alone.

“All my friends are stressed and overwhelmed. We’re just burned out.”

Welcome to the “running on empty” generation. Eva’s age cohort (called Generation Z if born from the mid-1990s on) is smart and dearly loved. They are more inclusive and open-minded.1 (“We’re the first generation to have dolls that can be boys, girls, neither, or both,” Eva pointed out. “That’s got to be good, right?”) They’re well educated with high aspirations for college and their future.

But they’re also less happy and more stressed, lonely, depressed, and suicidal when compared with any previous generation—and those descriptions were identified prior to COVID-19 and all the resulting anxiety it produced.

Every few months I called to check in with Eva until one day I was surprised that her mother answered. From the sound of her voice, I knew something was wrong. Through her sobs she explained that her daughter was in the hospital suffering from severe depression.

“I didn’t realize how sad and overwhelmed she felt,” the mom sobbed. “I thought I’d given her everything she needed to be happy and successful, but I was so wrong. I missed helping her enjoy herself.”

I hear so many similar heart-wrenching stories from parents, but always when they realize that their kids are not faring well. Why are these kids struggling so hard, when they seem to have so much? Why does this generation strive but fail to thrive? I decided to dig deeper.

THE GENERATION of STRIVERS

“We are college and career ready, but sure aren’t ‘human’ ready.”

—Erin, sixteen, Greer, South Carolina

A few days later, I was halfway across the country, at a middle-class middle school in Boston. The security guard escorted me to the library where twelve middle school students were waiting to share their views on what it’s like to be a kid today. All were chosen by the counselor based on my criteria: diverse, articulate students with a “pulse on the social scene.” This was my twenty-fifth student focus group, so I had an idea of what to expect, but I was still interested in seeing what they were going to tell me. This is a unique generation that has faced a pandemic, school shootings, terrorism, and natural disasters along with intense pressure to succeed like no other past cohort.

“Tell me about your generation,” I inquired.

I looked out at the group of students in front of me. I saw what I always see: a bunch of kids who were thoughtful, sincere, and frankly amazed that someone wanted to hear their opinions.

A blond twelve-year-old named Amelia was first to share. “We’re definitely the most stressed generation, and it’s only getting worse.” The group agreed. (I’ve yet to hear a kid disagree.)

“Do your parents know how stressed you are?” Every kid shook their head.

“We hide our anxiety,” a brown-haired boy wearing a Nike shirt explained. “It doesn’t work telling our parents because they don’t understand what it’s like to be a kid.”

Then I asked these eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-olds to describe their age group. Listening to their comments was when I knew it was time to alter our parenting course.

“Every friend I know says they feel stressed.”

“We’re lonely because we’re so immersed in social media and losing face-to-face connection.”

“Our generation always focuses on trying to make everything picture-perfect, so we’re drained.”

“We’re constantly compared to each other so never feel good enough.”

“We’re afraid of failing because our grades mean too much so we’re always stressed.”

“Our lives are crammed, but we’re social beings with no time for friends and lonely.”

“We are forced to grow up too quickly and need more time to be kids and have friends.”

“We lack passion because everything is pushed on us so we don’t know who we are.”

“Our generation has had lockdown drills since kindergarten. They get to you after a while. And then we were sheltered in place because of that coronavirus thing. It’s scary.”

“We may look good on the outside, but we’re not so good inside. We’re kind of lost.”

Every student group I interview—regardless of zip code—shares similar descriptions. These are greatly loved kids: warm, bright, with endless opportunities. Their parents think they have it all together, and that they are setting up their kids for future success. So why are they so much unhappier than kids in the past? Why are they struggling? Leave it to a kid to give the best answer.

An unfinished wooden puzzle lay on the next table. The box cover showed children from different countries playing together in the world, but pieces were missing. A red-haired boy named Aiden kept staring at it and finally said, “That puzzle is us: we’re trying to fit into the world but can’t because we’re missing pieces.”

“Which pieces are you missing?” I asked.

“The pieces on how to be people, like how to get along, handle mistakes, cope with stress, that kind of stuff—pieces that build your character and make you human. But we’re being raised to just be products, so we all feel empty.”

And suddenly the mystery of why this generation feels so unhappy, overwhelmed, stressed, and lonely made perfect sense. We told them that if they strive for more—more likes, better grades, greater accolades—they’d be happy. But these young Strivers aren’t happy . . . and what’s more, they’re not thriving. They are stunted, anxious, and unhappy. We have raised a generation of kids who have more of everything, but we’ve forgotten to give them the thing they need most to succeed: the mental and moral qualities that make them human.

Character is what builds inner strength, genuineness, and wholeness and helps turn kids who strive for the next gold ring into young adults who thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing world. When kids are missing character strengths like optimism, curiosity, empathy, and perseverance their development is incomplete. They often don’t succeed outside the very narrowly defined parameters of school and classrooms. They’re not ready for the uncertain world that awaits them—a world that’s even more unpredictable with every passing year. In short, they turn out like beautifully wrapped packages but are missing the gifts inside.

It is not too late to fill in the missing pieces in our kids’ development, but it requires switching our myopic obsession with scores, grades, and big fat résumés to a farsighted view of what they will need to lead meaningful lives. At present, our smart, loved, stellar test takers are failing to launch and handle life. The character void in their development undermines their human abilities and reduces their potential to thrive. Character is the missing piece.

But here’s the good news: It’s not too late. Character is not innate—you’re not born with it. Character strengths can be taught.

In fact, they must be taught.

This book shows parents, teachers, and other educators how to instill those missing character pieces to produce strong, resilient kids with the complete package of strong heart, mind, and will. A kid who has character is what I call a Thriver—a person who is ready and able to take on the twenty-first century. But first, let me tell you why this situation really is so dire—and why all of us need to pay attention.

Why We Should Worry

“There’s an amazing amount of depression and anxiety. Seventy percent of my friends are in therapy; forty percent are on medication. We’re hurting but nobody does anything until another kid is suicidal.”

—Ava, fifteen, Green Bay, Wisconsin

I’ve been an educational consultant for over four decades and worked with hundreds of parents, teachers, and children from poverty to privilege across the United States and around the world. I’ve seen child trends come and go, but I’ve never been more concerned about kids than now. The urgency in writing this book was triggered by an email from a distraught mom seeking help for her suburban community:

“We have forty dead kids in two-and-a-half years to suicide within a twenty-mile radius. Most are white, affluent, high-achieving males who did not use drugs but hung themselves. Most look like your kids and mine. The last seven have been females—two with guns.”

The following week a high school guidance counselor contacted me with a similar plea:

“Our community is in crisis as we live in a suicide belt and are extremely short on therapists. We don’t know the cause, but something is terribly wrong with our kids.”

Each week educators voiced similar worries.

“Something about kids has changed.”

“They seem overwhelmed and anxious.”

“They’re suffering.”

They were concerned about younger students as well.

“Our third graders can’t focus as well and are quicker to anger.”

“First graders have trouble coping.”

“Five-year-olds worry about failing.”

A speaking engagement in Palo Alto, California, twenty minutes from where I grew up, put the child scene into crisis mode. Parent volunteers started a Track Watch program after a high number of teens killed themselves on the train tracks.2 The ten-year suicide rate at their two high-achieving high schools is four and five times the national average. But the mental health epidemic is not confined to the Bay Area. Over the past decade, reports from coast to coast show teens and young adults to be more depressed and suffering higher levels of psychological distress than their predecessors.3 Visit your local high school bathroom and you’ll find suicide hotline numbers posted for students.

Teens confirm that they are burned out and worry about their well-being and for their peers. Sara, a bright, red-haired Austin, Texas, fifteen-year-old, summed up what I often hear. “The worst place I can be is in my head, but I don’t know anyone who feels good about who they are. No matter how hard you work, you never feel good enough.”

Jack, a Pittsburgh teen who said he was just accepted to Yale, still felt empty. “High school is nonstop studying, test taking, filling out applications, and worrying. I never could come up for air.”

Josh, a musically gifted Wisconsin junior with a 4.3 grade point average, said, “Our days are so jammed with school, SAT prep, studying, and activities that I can never do things to recharge, like being with friends and music. We’re all burned out.” Burned out, and their lives are just beginning.

I wish I could tell these kids one important thing.

Grades don’t matter.

Okay, maybe that’s a little hyperbolic. Grades do matter, of course. They can open the door to a scholarship, college or university acceptance, and employment.

But what I mean when I say “grades don’t matter” is that they aren’t the gold-plated indicator of success they might have been even a generation ago—even as the race for those grades is more fraught than ever before. Today’s college admissions process has become all-consuming, frantic, and frankly terrifying, but once teens receive those coveted acceptance letters, there’s still no relief. Anxiety, loneliness, and feelings of emptiness continue, and in all too many cases increase. The New York Times reported that in 1985, 18 percent of college freshmen said they “felt overwhelmed by all I had to do.” By 2018 that number had surged to 41 percent. One in four college students was diagnosed with or treated for a mental health disorder in the prior year; one-fifth of all students surveyed have contemplated suicide,4 and colleges are deeply concerned.

We’ve raised a generation of children who are really great at reaching for that brass ring. They’re achieving, studying, and working hard. They’re also full of anxiety and putting enormous pressure on themselves. They’re Strivers. No matter what they do and how hard they push, they never feel “good enough.” And when challenges arise, they often quit because they lack the inner reserve and preparedness that provide inner strength to endure.

I delivered a keynote to 2,500 university counselors last year, and they confirmed there is a mental health epidemic. A Princeton counselor told me, “The students are incredibly smart, but lonely. Something is missing.” A Harvard counselor added, “It’s as though they’re soulless.” A Stanford psychologist summed up what everyone felt: “They’re empty, and that’s a very sad commentary for America.” Indeed.

One-third of college students drop out at the end of their freshman year. The United States now has the highest college dropout rate in the industrial world.5 “Stress, inability to deal with expectations, and helicoptering parenting” are cited as leading causes.6

Maybe what we should be telling kids is not that grades don’t matter . . . but that they’re not the only thing that matters. Teaching them otherwise is a huge injustice to children.

Turning Strivers into Thrivers

“We’re growing up in a highly competitive, academically rigorous environment that breeds stress and constantly compares us with each other. It feels like we’re being raised to be scores, not kids. We’re just burned out.”

—Gabi, seventeen, Chicago

Helping children learn to thrive has been my life’s work. I began my career teaching at-risk youth in Northern California. Most of my students lived in poverty, suffered abuse, or were challenged by learning, emotional, or physical disabilities, and I always wondered what I could do to help them succeed. I worked on my doctorate in educational psychology and counseling and studied resilience and learned an important lesson: Thrivers are made not born. Children clearly need safe, loving, and structured childhoods, but they also need autonomy, competence, and agency to flourish. Thriving is comprised of acquired skills. I developed ways to teach these skills to my students and discovered that they improved not only their academic performance but also their behavior, confidence, and optimism.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons (March 8, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593085299
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593085295
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.41 x 0.69 x 8.17 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #50,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #49 in School-Age Children Parenting
- #106 in Parenting Boys
- #149 in Popular Child Psychology

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4.6 925 ratings

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Michele Borba

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Michele Borba, Ed. D., is an internationally renowned educational psychologist and an expert in parenting, bullying, and character development. She is an award-winning author of 22 books that have been translated into 14 languages. One of the foremost authorities on childhood development, she is an NBC contributor who appears regularly on Today and has been featured as an expert on Dateline, The View, Dr. Phil, NBC Nightly News, Fox & Friends, The Dr. Oz Show, and The Early Show, among many other programs. She has spoken to over 1 million participants on 5 continents and to organizations including Sesame Street, U.S. Air Force Academy, HRR, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, McDonalds, Johnson & Johnson, Harvard, and 18 overseas Army Bases. Her TEDx talk has garnered 15k views and she has been a media spokesperson for brands like Kellog’s, Nikon, Walmart, and more. She lives in Palm Springs, California, with her husband, and she is the mother of three grown sons. To contact her for speaking on her website at Dr. Michele Borba or American Program Bureau.

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Amazon Customer

Spreading wisdom

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2024

Verified Purchase

Of course my kids delivered a disappointed ‘Thanks’ when opening the gift. I listened on audio and knew I couldn’t remember to pass on the interesting facts and ideas that I learned, so I bought the books as gifts. Some ideas are old and some are new. Overall a great read.

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Elizabeth Vineyard

ESSENTIAL for all parents and educators to read

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2021

Verified Purchase

As an elementary educator for the last fifteen years, I finally found a book that put all the frustration and wondering of why kids come to school struggling, drained, and overwhelmed. Borba states, "We are creating strivers, not thinkers, produced to be test-takers while missing the opportunity to be people."
She points out that we are all running on empty. In her book, she discusses the 7 core strengths that kids need in order to shine. Thrivers not only provides readers with current research, but it has practical and easy tips that both parents and educators can do to help foster a new generation of thrivers and not strivers.

If you are worried about your children's mental health, depression, anxiety, and stress, you must read this book. This book comes at a time when we all must work together to move the pendulum of what achievement looks like in 2021 and reimagine education for our youth, tweens, teens, and young adults.

Truly, this book has been life-changing.

16 people found this helpful

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Barbie M.

Definitely A Must Read!

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2021

Verified Purchase

Dr. Michele Borba’s latest book, Thrivers, is a must-read for every parent, grandparent, educator, or just anyone working with children. Dr. Borba speaks from the heart with years of research to back up every word. Wisdom oozes from every page of Thrivers. One of her quotes that really resonated with me was, “Character is what builds inner strength, genuineness, and wholeness and helps turn kids who strive for the next gold ring into young adults who thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing world. When kids are missing character strengths like optimism, curiosity, empathy, and perseverance their development is incomplete.” Thrivers is filled with “Seven Teachable Skills That Set Happy, Healthy, High-Performing Kids Apart”. Thrivers shows us exactly how to instill these incredibly important missing character pieces in our children/students so they won’t be incomplete. This is crucial so they will be prepared for whatever they are faced with in the future. I want my students to be Thrivers! Dr. Borba’s book is just what we need! What an inspirational read!

20 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Good enough, good points

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

Definitely a book that makes a lot of good points. It's very repetitive though. And lots of it is common sense. If you want to learn why your children are overwhelmed, it definitely explains why

4 people found this helpful

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Ashley

Every parent and teacher should read this

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2022

Verified Purchase

I heard Dr. Borba speak at an event and decided to purchase the book from Amazon rather than her book table because of the savings. This book is a must-read for every parent and teacher, especially at a time when children are growing up with unique challenges many of us did not experience as kids.

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Angela Boen Noll

Must Have For Parents and Therapists

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2022

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Thriver’s is a game changer for parents,‘teachers and therapists Practical advice and steps to help “our kids” climb out of the disparity they are experiencing in the post pandemic world. Quotes from actual struggling teens and evidence based research comes together to equip parents and therapists. Finally a book that offers a life raft to a drowning generation.

3 people found this helpful

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SJ

Fantastic book to validate and inspire parents!

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2021

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I just finished reading this with my book club and it is superb! Researched, practical, and written by a mother and educator with a wealth of experience. This is the mentor you wish lived in your neighborhood or taught at your school! One of the best parenting books I've read and I love growth and strengths mindset of this book. If you get a chance, listen to her on a podcast or video because she is a dynamic speaker and very inspiring!

3 people found this helpful

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Su Chafin

More Secrets to Healthy Child Rearing in These Times by Dr. Borba!

Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2021

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Thrivers by Dr. Michelle Borba is a must have book. As a practicing licensed psychotherapist, this book is a must have for working with families and children to integrate into sessions. Dr. Borba has perfected the art of simplifying the complexity of child rearing into steps and formulas for the best outcomes and challenging behaviors. If you are a parent/guardian, grandparent, work with children/adolescents/families or have kids you love in your life, order Thrivers to increase your skill and education. You won't be sorry you did.

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