Books about Ruining from Amazon.com

Women are more likely than men to develop anxiety disorders, a fact which researchers have attributed to a range of biological, psychological, and cultural factors. This predispostion inclines women to worry more than men about things like social problems, work, finances—even about worry itself, a phenomenon psychologists call meta-worry. The goal of this book is to help readers control excessive worry by learning to perceive threats more accurately and to stop focusing on things that are unlikely to happen.

Following an introduction by noted psychologist Michelle Craske that explores the reasons women worry more than men, the book addresses the fundamentals of worry: what it is, how it differs from anxiety, and how it can develop into a chronic state of mind. The book offers strategies for overcoming worry that include monitoring personal worry triggers, breaking worry-provoking habits, and avoiding avoidance—a major aggravating factor for all anxiety disorders. From it, you’ll learn to use mindfulness techniques to avoid ruminating on the past or the future and how to use progressive relaxation to cope with worrisome situations..
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The more we learn about standardized testing.the more likely we are to be appalled And the more appalled we are, the more inclined we will be to do what is necessary to protect our children.
- Alfie Kohn

Our students are tested to an extent that is unprecedented in American history and unparalleled anywhere in the world. Politicians and businesspeople, determined to get tough with students and teachers, have increased the pressure to raise standardized test scores. Unfortunately, the effort to do so typically comes at the expense of more meaningful forms of learning.

That disturbing conclusion emerges from Alfie Kohn's devastating new indictment of standardized testing. Drawing from the latest research, he concisely explains just how little test results really tell us and just how harmful a test-driven curriculum can be. Written in a highly readable question-and-answer format, The Case Against Standardized Testing will help readers respond to common questions and challenges - showing, for example, that:

• high scores often signify relatively superficial thinking
• many of the leading tests were never intended to measure teaching or learning
• a school that improves its test results may well have lowered its standards to do so
• far from helping to "close the gap," the use of standardized testing is most damaging for low-income and minority students
• as much as 90 percent of the variations in test scores among schools or states have nothing to do with the quality of instruction
• far more meaningful measures of student learning - or school quality - are available.

Kohn's central message is that standardized tests are "not like the weather, something to which we must resign ourselves. . . . They are not a force of nature but a force of politics - and political decisions can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately reversed." The final section demonstrates how teachers, parents, and students can turn their frustration into action and successfully turn back the testing juggernaut in order to create classrooms that focus on learning.

Also available on Audiotape: The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools, read by Alfie Kohn.

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Price: $5.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is not just another book touting improved sportsmanship and better coaching to remedy the violence in youth sports today. Just Let the Kids Play is the first book to identify the youth sports systems as the cause of the problem, and offers practical ways to rebuild them so they better serve the physical and emotional needs of children.

First-round NBA draft pick, part-time NBA scout and youth coach Bob Bigelow joins journalists Tom Moroney and Linda Hall to put youth sports under harsh review. They explain the controversial belief that elite traveling teams at young ages should be abolished and replaced with equal playing time, team parity and shortened seasons, among others. Focusing on soccer, basketball, baseball and hockey, they highlight ten programs nationwide where these principles are working, and offer ways to integrate them into existing programs without sacrificing a child’s chances for success.

In the pages of this book you'll discover that it really is possible to sleep in on Saturdays without sacrificing your child’s future!.
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As a leading divorce negotiator and mediator, Sam Margulies has helped thousands of couples reach fair and amicable settlements. In this compassionate guide, now updated with vital information on changes in divorce law and norms, Margulies covers the legal, financial, and emotional realities of divorce in a straightforward, reassuring style. He takes readers through every step, from making the initial decision to finalizing the agreement, including:

• Why mediation is now the preferred way to divorce

• How to avoid the conflicts that often occur after the divorce is over

• How to negotiate successfully even when you are angry

• How to manage step-family conflict in the aftermath of divorce

With examples drawn from real-life cases, Getting Divorced Without Ruining Your Life explains how to protect one's own interests and negotiate a stress-free, enduring agreement that allows both partners to embark on a new life.

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Price: $3.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]

How often have you wished you knew how to defuse the difficult people who wreak havoc on your life? Whether it's a neighbor who keeps disturbing your peace, an employer who manipulates you into unpaid overtime, a spouse who criticizes and controls your every move, a colleague who uses scare tactics to intimidate you, or a student who teases your child without mercy, Take the Bully by the Horns will give you real-life strategies stop people from taking advantage of you, including how to:

* Adopt a "don't you dare" attitude
* Refuse to play The Blame-Shame Game
* Beat em to the punch...line
* Stop paying the price of nice
* Put all kidding aside
* Act on your anger instead of suffering in silence
* Savior Self from martyrs and guilt-mongers
* Not be victimized by crazy-making Jekyll/Hyde personalities
* Adopt the Clarity Rules and Rights

With these tools, you can take back your peace of mind and your sanity. The bold suggestions in Take the Bully by the Horns will show you once and for all how to convince unfair or unkind relatives, co-workers, customers, or strangers to either behave cooperatively or leave you alone.
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Price: $8.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Willow Creek Press is proud to bring back to print Bradford Angier's classic One Acre & Security: How To Live Off the Earth without Ruining It. First published in 1972, Angier (deceased) is one of the pre-eminent voices of the back-to-the-earth movement One Acre & Security is a book for all those who have dreamed of living close to the earth, not in the wilderness, but on land within easy driving distance of the city or suburbs. It begins by explaining what sort of land to look for, where to look and how to make sure of land titles. It goes on to discuss organic gardening on one acre of land, raising herbs for money and bees for honey, growing grapes, making wine, juice and jellies, and drying raisins. For the more serious back-to-the-earther, there are sections on how to build a house, keep cows, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry, raise rabbits, earthworms, fish, frogs and turtles, and how to find the best hunting and fishing. Angier's text is as useful and thorough today as it was 30 years ago, and deserves to be on the shelves of a new generation of back-to-earthers..
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"The best book I’ve seen on how we can stop sabotaging our need for balance Compulsive achievers will find here everything they need to gain the sense of satisfaction that’s eluded them. This book is a must-read for men and women struggling with the mystery of why they’re not happy. This is a most wise, helpful, and important book, and it’s wonderfully readable."
–Mira Kirshenbaum
author of Everything Happens for a Reason and The Emotional Energy Factor

"Every perfectionistic, hypervigilant person wondering why peace of mind is so elusive should read this book. Dr. Ciaramicoli totally nails the issue of performance addiction and offers all the help you need. A life-changing book."
–Dr. Charles Foster, author of Feel Better Fast

"A much-welcome, reader-friendly, utterly unpretentious call to sanity. With clarity and disarming simplicity, Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli exposes the futility and indeed the harm of our collective compulsive ride on the achievement treadmill. . . . Performance Addiction is a crash course in essential wisdom for today. Read it and give it to anyone about whose mental health and happiness you deeply care."
–P. M. Forni, Professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of Choosing Civility

"Integrating theory with compelling stories from his clinical practice, Dr. Ciaramicoli provides concrete, practical methods to address the growing problem of performance addiction."
–Richard Kadison, M.D.
Chief, Mental Health Services, Harvard University Health Services

Do you achieve goals without feeling fulfilled?
Do you think your hard work will win you love and respect?
Do you feel as if you’re never doing well enough?

In this intriguing and prescriptive guide, Harvard Medical School instructor Dr. Arthur P. Ciaramicoli explains this new psychological issue, revealing the reasons why the label of success so rarely leads to happiness. Performance Addiction gives you action steps for freeing yourself from the obligation to excel, finding new meaning in your work and relationships, and going beyond material reward to obtain genuine, healthy accomplishment throughout your life. Through illuminating self-evaluations and writing exercises, you’ll gain a stronger sense of self, learn to balance your work and your personal life, and at long last find the satisfaction that comes from breaking your patterns of addictive behavior and finding new, better ways to accept and give love..
Price: $3.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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A top conservative writer explores the feminist assault on our families, schools, workplaces, and military

As a woman, Kate O’Beirne can say things a male commentator could never get away with. In her long-awaited first book, she takes on America’s leading feminists—including Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Maureen Dowd, Kate Michelman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and even Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. She confronts them with hard evidence of how women like them have done more harm than good over the last four decades.

OÂ’Beirne is all for womenÂ’s equality and celebrates the unprecedented opportunities they enjoy today. But she faults those feminists who believe that a hostile patriarchy reigns and that women remain its helpless victims. Their agenda is not profemale; itÂ’s merely antimale.

Women Who Make the World Worse shows how their destructive handiwork can be felt in every corner of American life, including:
• fractured families and dispensable dads
• offices and schools that have become battlegrounds in the gender wars
• military units that put lives at risk to promote social engineering

This book takes on some very powerful women and challenges beliefs that have become feminist orthodoxy, starting with the myth that men are the enemy of womenÂ’s progress. OÂ’Beirne marshals her allies, prepares for a good fight, and never loses her sense of humor. This is a provocative book that will appeal to anyone, male or female, who wants some old-fashioned common sense about relations between the sexes.

“We depend on manly characteristics to keep us safe. Every single one of the dead firemen heroes on 9/11 were men. This was one group where liberals didn’t ask why there wasn’t a more pleasing gender balance, because the Upper West Side is not fireproof. What happens in combat in some distant field is abstract to liberals, but they can understand the need to have strong, brave men in their fire department.” —Kate O’Beirne.
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