No Regrets Parenting: Turning Long Days and Short Years into Cherished Moments with Your Kids Paperback – February 21, 2012

I just finished reading a great book called "No Regrets Parenting: Turning Long Days and Short Years into Cherished Moments with Your Kids" by Harley A. Rotbart M.D. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to all parents out there, no matter what their age. It offers some good points and creative ideas for getting the most out of your time with your children and even some tips about how to stay involved after they venture off to college. My take-away from this book is to try to look for opportunities to share a moment with my boys, even if I am doing something I normally wouldn't involve them in. For instance, while in the midst of reading this book, I was traveling in the car with my family and we stopped to get some gas. My youngest asked me if he could help pump the gas. Normally, I would say no and just do it myself because it's faster. But, I said yes and was able to teach him how to pump gas and gave him a life lesson about how expensive things can be. His eyes got wide when he saw that our van took almost $70 in gas. It was a nice moment that I might have missed before reading this book. The best thing about this book is that you don't have to drop your normal activities, just incorporate your kids into what you are already doing. It was easy to read and offered some good insights. If nothing else, I will be more aware of opportunities to create a memory with my boys.

I loved this book from beginning to end. Yes, some of it may be things you are already doing...however it's about making those moments count. Creating must-do's and errands to quality time together. I think he paints the perfect picture of how precious our time with our children is and how fast that time will go. He gave really great and realistic examples of how to make the best of that time together. He gives great parenting advice that we can all use because noone knows it all. I thought his insights were beautifully written and I enjoyed learning about his perspectives on parenting. I would recommend this book to any parent who have kids at any age. Great, great book. Buy it...you won't be sorry and it will make you want to treasure every moment with your kids even more...because the time is so special.

It’s good that this book expects us to be easier on ourselves. That said, it makes me wonder whether it suggests parents to give a rat’s ass about what’s physiologically and mentally happening to their kids as they grow.

This book has good ideas for busy parents. As a mom who works full-time and is going to school for an MBA, doing lengthy, involved projects is rarely an option for me. This books gives ideas on how to squeeze out GREAT time in even just a few moments a day. My favorite piece of advice from the book is when you've had your fill of your child's behavior to take a moment and picture them grown up and moving out of the house - this is an instant mommy brightener. I can go from extremely annoyed with my little guy to extremely enamored in about 3 seconds flat. Love it!

The first two chapters could have easily been condensed. The author kept talking in circles and being repetitive instead of just stating the point and moving on. He also used a condescending tone. There were two more annoying features of this book:1. The author (and I'm not sure how this got approved by an editor) uses smiley face emoticons throughout the book. Totally juvenile and unnecessary, and really make me take the book much less seriously. I think the author may have thought he was being 'hip'?2. The author is writing the book as if he is writing to his own age cohort, but the material is presumably more for parents of young children, so much younger than the author. Throughout the book he refers to not being able to use dvd players or listening to oldies music. This really is not the crowd that is reading the book.There really are so many more useful and professional parenting books out there. I would not recommend this to a friend.

This is NOT a book about behavior management — it's a great book to help new parents (or old) appreciate and maximize the gift of time with kids before they are grown and gone. Quality over quantity to help "turn the long days and short years into cherished moments with your kids."

Nice reading, the author gives a bunch of tips that seem pretty common and obvious while parenting, but we usually tend to forget or disregard while parenting. It’s easy and fun to read. I’m definetly following most of the tips.

No clue what im doing. I had to take a multiple choice test to get a permit to drive (with my parents). Theres no tests for kids, meaning most of us dont have a clue. This book helps to provide focus in a realistic way, from a normal humans pespective, not just super parents.

I am reading this book as suggested by the author -- by leaving it in the bathroom and reading random bits at random times (actually that's the only way I can take handbooks about parenting). I have found quite a few useful tips, some of them very precious. I like the fundamental message the author tries to hammer into parents' heads. Every minute spent with your children is incredibly precious and you'll regret not having made the most of it because you were knackered after a bad day at work or hunted by a long list of things to do. Turning 'together time' into your 'downtime', easier said than done but worth a try.

I bought this book because it was mentioned in a parenting magazine I got. I have a 1 yr old and thought it could shed some light on new approaches to modern day parenting. It was interesting in a "general" way and was a very easy read (I think I read it in one evening), but I didn't offer any truly new ideas that remained with me. We all know we need to spend more time with our children and this books tries to explain why and how and the value of it - but I didn't find ground breaking ideas that one could not come up with on our own. I regret buying it, but then again the authors language is very accessible and maybe other parents who are too focused on work and other activities could use this "waking up". Perhaps I wasn't the intended audience for it.

I just started reading it... Although I think it's quite good, I love the idea you don't have to read cover to cover. You can go directly to the chapter in interest :)