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The Delite Rancher says:

Your kids will thank you! Question: why would somebody read a parenting guide that advocates traumatizing children? Answer: because it’s really funny! This book describes seven parenting styles that promise to psychologically damage any young person enough to require decades of adult therapy. The schools of parenting include the controller, the pusher, the narcissist, the indulger, the best friend, the self-esteem killer and neglector. The average reader comes to this book with a vague familiarity of these parenting styles. “How to Traumatize Your Children” gives each of these styles a colorful name and explores the roots and childhood consequences. The hope is to discover and develop a natural parenting style. As the authors write, “When it comes to trauma, there’s no wrong way- there’s only poor execution” (p. 17). After the introduction, each chapter features a parenting style with consistent organizational elements. One such element is the developmental stages section; it offers examples of how a given style works when a young person is in utero, an infant, baby, toddler, child, adolescent, teen, young adult and adult. For the neglectful parent, the in utero stage is described as follows, “Don’t bother changing your diet or smoking, drinking, and drug habits just because you’re pregnant. For fathers, pregnancy is an ideal time to leave without a forwarding address” (p. 135). The authors even explain the compatibility of various dysfunctional parenting styles. “How to Traumatize Your Children” is peppered with ‘tidings of trauma’ sections which feature germane quotes by various thinkers and celebrities. One of the highlights is by Clarence Darrow who wrote, “The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.” Another memorable tiding is, “There is no such thing as ‘fun for the whole family’” -Jerry Seinfeld. The humorous graphics help to make the book a fast read. All kidding aside, the book actually teaches about parenting with humor and sarcasm. Readers will be surprised to recognize elements from their own childhood and reflect on the styles of the parents of childhood friends. For parent readers, there’s much room for humorous self-examination. Unless one has academically studied family dysfunction, the potential reader is vaguely familiar with these styles but doesn’t yet have the names or flushed out details. Indeed, the book has genuine value as a parenting tool in that it shows what not to do and why. The mixture of humor and sarcasm is likely to resonate with many personality types. If nothing else, “How to Traumatize Your Children: 7 Proven Methods to Help You Screw Up Your Kids Deliberately and with Skill” makes for an entertaining parody of the “for dummies” and “for idiots” guides.