When our book Teaching Your Children Values hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list in the ’90s, people were surprised. We were surprised. A parenting book had not topped that bestseller list for 50 years.
Thinking back, there were a couple of reasons for the book’s success. One was Oprah. She loved the book and had us on for the full hour of her show, and then re-ran the show a few weeks later. The article below is about the Oprah show, and the video is a large portion of the show itself.
The second thing that helped the book become number one was the way it is organized. It outlines twelve key values that all parents want their children to learn and live by, and instead of chapters, it has 12 months, and the suggestion that parents concentrate on one value each month….Honesty in January, Courage in February, Respect in March, and so on. Then it gives practical, tested methods to teach each value. Parents liked this because it simplified their lives–instead of trying to worry about all the values they wanted their kids to live by, they could just focus on one single value each month.
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