Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads

Starred review from December 12, 2005
If Wiseman was bold in her bestselling Queen Bees & Wannabes
by telling the truth about entitled girls and their excesses, she's even more daring here. The subject this time is parents, and the phrase "we have met the enemy and he is us" may be a little too true for comfort. As cofounder of the Empower Program, which teaches kids to stop violence, Wiseman works with more than 10,000 children annually; she knows her territory. She explains that she wants to help parents navigate "the unspoken rules of Perfect Parent World" so they can find their own "happy medium between overprotective parenting and frightened passivity." While she's used to seeing through most adolescent subterfuges, she's worked with enough parents to know their evil sides, too—how they curse out school counselors, threaten to sue principals, exclude other parents at meetings and one-up other parents over their kids' college plans. Wiseman wants to show people how to behave better; she even includes sample scripts for difficult situations. Her bottom line: parents have to model good behavior if they want to end up with good kids. And since we all live in the same communities, good kids are in everyone's best interest.

Starred review from February 1, 2006
Wiseman's best-selling "Queen Bees and Wannabes"exposed the world of cliques, queen-bee teens, and outcasts. Here, she goes one step further by exploring their impossible moms and dads. Where "had"those queen bees come from anyway? They had been hatched, nurtured, and cultivated within families run by overanxious, pushy parents. A psychologist and mother, Wiseman does a magnificent job of cracking the code of -parentspeak - so that parents know how to approach coaches, teachers, counselors, other parents, and the principal with confidence. But that's not all -Wiseman advises that parents should not know everything about their kids. Being a great parent means showing respect for your teen's privacy and choices. She argues that giving young kids cell phones -for their safety - really teaches kids that the world is a very frightening place; moreover, it allows kids to conceal their locations. Parents who used to make phone calls to chat with other parents and their kids no longer do that. Ours is a messy, get-ahead-now world. Wiseman makes sense of it. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ "1/15/05.]" -Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA"

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