Children’s author Vanita Braver knows kids. A child and adolescent psychiatrist, Braver is the psychiatric medical director of Bonnie Brae Educational Center, a residential treatment facility for adolescents in New Jersey. She also is the mother of three daughters: 9 year-old Samantha and Alyssa and India, 11 year-old identical twins.

     In her work, she deals with both children and their distraught parents. “They’d be just beside themselves,” she says and she would tell them, “I’d be worried if you weren’t upset about what was going on in your kid’s life. You’re only as happy as your saddest child.”

   This parenting insight is what is behind Braver’s Teach Your Children Well book series. It not only deals with children’s moral development with characters children can relate to, but it also shows grownups good parenting models.

     As part of Braver’s research for her series, she read children’s books by the boxful. She started with a lot of fairy tales because that was what she grew up with, as many of us did. But with adult eyes, she saw something else between the Once Upon A Time and the Happily Ever After. “Look at the way the women are being depicted,” she says. “It was always the beautiful one that’s good. It’s the wicked ones who were not good looking. And what is this ‘living happily ever after’? I didn’t want to give these attitudes to my children. That was another reason why I wrote the books. They’re sort of like anti-fairy tales.”

    Contemporary tales were no better Braver discovered. For example, the Berenstain Bears were a popular series that kids found fun to read or be read to. “I have nothing personal about the Berenstain Bears’ author or the books,” she says, “but when I read them to my children, I thought these role models were horrible just because the father was depicted as violent.” It is true that Papa Bear seemed to always lose his temper about something. “What kind of modeling is this?” Braver says. “I wanted to do something more reality-based.”

    Though Mama Bear seemed to be pretty positive in these stories, it still posed problems for children from today’s families. By depicting a gentle mother and an angry father, parenting models like this put a wedge between mothers and fathers and continues a stereotype. This is further complicated when there are single parent families with the father as the only caregiver.

    So, Braver created an ideal family that seems to do the right things at the right times. “I know that’s not reality,” she readily admits. “One of the things I always say is ‘I was the perfect parent until I had children.’” Yet, she wanted the books to have a dual purpose. “I really wanted each book to be fun for kids so that they could identify with the characters, but I also wanted parents to identify with different scenarios within the books and give them a tool to work with, and learn with, and open up areas of discussion with, too. The books are very reality-based in terms of the dilemmas and the responsibilities of the parents.”

    What Braver has done, though, is provide ways in which children and parents can look at different scenarios that help shape character. Therefore, she has written nine books, each dealing with an important step in moral development. “The books depict the importance of giving, the importance of forgiving, the importance of having gratitude for everyday things, the importance of doing your best, whether you win or lose. There is also a book on respecting differences and tolerance,” she says. “They are all universal values. That’s what I wanted to do with the book series was have something that is universal that everyone could relate to, that anyone from any background could relate to.”

   She also drops in “positive parenting pearls,” as she calls them, into each book. These are parenting role model moments that can help parents deal with difficult issues like honesty and forgiveness. “What I really wanted with this book series is, if anything, is to make people think,” Braver says, “to have an opportunity to reflect, whether it is reflecting within themselves or having these discussions between parent and child.”

     And indeed they are doing just that. Braver relates an encounter with a mother who had read Party Princess, a book that deals with a little girl’s using her mother’s makeup without permission and making a mess. “One mom said, ‘The exact scenario happened with the makeup and all that. I screamed my head off, and I punished her. Why isn’t this mother not punishing her daughter?’” Braver recalls. “Then the mother asked, ‘Do you think that was wrong?’ And, I said, ‘It’s not my job to judge whether your behavior is right or wrong, but I can tell you that punishment is an area of controversy in a lot of ways. In my experience, when you punish a child for doing something wrong, it usually has a negative connotation to it. I like to use the word, consequence, instead. To me that’s different than punishment. Punishment teaches children to resent and to have fear because we’re angry. A consequence is really telling children that what they did was not totally acceptable, but it gives them an opportunity to have what I call, effective self-discipline, which is what we want in the end.’

      “The mother did buy a copy of the book, and she’s been emailing me back and forth because my website is on the back of the book. And she’s telling me what an impact this has had on her in terms of thinking about how she is parenting.”

     That’s important to Braver. Like many authors, Braver would love her books to be read by the masses. Readily admitting she is not a Madonna or Jamie Lee Curtis, celebrities who have written children’s books, she knows that will not be the case and may not be her ultimate goal. “If one of my books has changed the life of one person or one family, that’s all I expect and hope for.”

    But Braver’s books are unique. No other child psychiatrist has written a series of children’s books on moral development. In them, she also adds another dimension. At the end of each book, readers see Madison, the main character, snuggling in bed with a stuffed animal that whispers something to her about what she has learned during the day. Critics have questioned Braver’s use of these animal characters, who seem to come to life at the end of these reality-based books. Her response is psychiatrically based, “I’m doing this because I’m a psychiatrist. To me, these animal characters are aspects of ourselves: hope, courage, wisdom, and honesty. I feel that if we can tap into these strengths of ours, then we can get ourselves through any dilemma. The characters coming to life at the end is really what is called hypnagogic phenomena in psychiatry; just as kids fall asleep, they enter this dreamlike state. This is my way of saying the lesson that Madison learned that day was processed and internalize. It became a part of her. The animals are really her, projecting everything she’s learned. That’s why the animals never talk back to her throughout the book when you see her carrying them around. They never talk back, except at the end. It’s a faint, little whisper, but it’s really her conscience.”

    In addition, the proceeds from all of Braver’s books go directly to children’s causes. Her publisher, The Child and Family Press, is the publishing arm of the Child Welfare League of America, the oldest and largest child advocacy organization in the country. Revenues from book sales further the goals of the organization to improve the well being of children and families. Braver’s next writing project is a parenting book. “It’s the adult version to accompany my children’s book,” she says. “It’s about raising a child with values, morals, self-esteem, and character. I’ve been working on it a little bit here and there. It will have all of the positive parenting pearls. I’m taking little, clinical vignettes from my practice over the years and writing about the values that happened in different cases. I give a little tip at the end of each chapter about what can be done in various scenarios and what we can do at every stage of development of any child. I’ve had some presses interested in it, but I have to be happy with it before I submit it formally anywhere.”

    The foundation of Braver’s work is very simple. She says, “My hope with these books, whether it’s my parenting book or these children’s books, is to get the message out that when you get into a struggle in life (which you’re definitely going to do), the thing you can count on to deal with it is to look at your own values. They will be your guides.” The Teach Your Children Well series is indeed a tool to start exploring those values for you and your family.