You can find a lot of books about parenting, but many of them are just pop psychology, the solitary opinion of the author.
Gottman is definitely not one of them. He is known as one of the leading psychologists in the area of family and marriage psychology. This book presents the essence of his research findings about raising emotionally intelligent children.
His advise is surprisingly easy and is based on a 5 step model:
1. Be aware of your child's emotion
2. See your child's emotions as an opportunity to be close together
3. Actively listen to your child and validate the feelings
4. Help your child to verbalize his feelings
5. Help your child solve problems, while setting clear limits

Gottman clearly explains how you can implement this 5-step-model in daily life and what to do when problems arise. His real life examples make reading really fun.
All in all, an excellent parenting book! As a supplement, I can also recommend the book by M. Seligman: "The optimistic child"

This audio book has opened my eyes to what children are really thinking and how to deal with them. I have tried the recommended ideas with my own daughter and it has worked wonders. It can be difficult at first, but with patience, these ideas will create a bond between you and your child that you may not have known could exist.

"Emotional Intelligence" has recently been recognized as an important life skill. A combination of important traits (including self-discipline, ability to handle anger appropriately, self-esteem, empathy, and social skills), emotional intelligence allows one to handle life's frustrations and to "work and play well with others." These skills have been shown as more important than I.Q. as predictors of success in one's personal relationships and career. This wonderful book teaches parents how to raise their children to have emotional intelligence. The book sees children's problems and frustrations as opportunities for "emotion coaching" - helping them learn how to deal with their emotions. The book also identifies four "parenting styles" - two of these styles react negatively to chldren's negative emotions, one style accepts them but doesn't help the child deal with them, and the "Emotion Coaching" style accepts the emotions and teaches the child what to do with them. I wish my parents had had this book - I was a "difficult" child, prone to tantrums, etc., but much of my difficulty came from feeling frustrated and not knowing what to do about it. My parents were loving, but didn't really know how to handle the problem. This book will create greater understanding between parent and child, and will help the child grow up to be an emotionally healthy adult.

This book by John Gottman deals with nearly all aspects of marital therapy: myths and mistakes, assessment methods, and interventions.
It is strictly research oriented, i.e. Gottman does not follow a special theoretical school such as psychodynamic of cognitive-behavioral marital therapy. His findings from the last 30 years include many diversions from classical marital therapy as well as some really surprising finding. Let me give you just one example: active listening, the core concept of many therapies is NOT fundamental for a good marriage. Actually, even happily married couples very rarely use active listening. This is not to say that active listening is harmful, it is just not necessary for developing and maintaining a happy relationship.
Gottman offers his own version of clinically proven interventions, their respective assumptions and sections for dealing with problems.
This book is aimed for therapists and counselors. They will find a wealth of information, especially a lot of assessment instruments.
Every professional in the area of marital therapy should read this book. You will surely find many recommendations. After all, it's the clients' health you are serving. Gottman's interventions have proven to be greatly beneficial for couples: his clients divorce half as often as clients treated with traditional marriage therapy.
That alone should be reason enough to actively use his methods.
The interested lay person should read Gottman's book "The 7 principles for making marriage work" which explains his findings in easy to understand language.
By and large, this book is an excellent example of a professional resource book!

This remarkable book advances the understanding of what works in marital and, I believe, family therapy. Early chapters review marital theories, and how they lived up to their assumptions when tested through well designed research. Gottman presents a very respectful attitude toward the marital couple and emphasizes the importance of honoring the goal of establishing and supporting the couple's self sufficiency. The chapter titled Buffering Children From Marital Conflict is an insightful introduction into how to help parents develop the tools to strenghten their children's resilience. As a person who has worked with at risk children and families for 17 years and has recently completed a masters degree in mental health counseling, I have read my share of family counseling books. From Satir to Whitaker to Lang to Minuchen(sp)... (you get the point). This is by far the best book on the subject!

This book was recommended for me to read by my Sociology Professor instead of John Gray's work, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and I love it! I've delved a little into both texts and enjoy Gottman's work better since its suggestions are backed by years of clinical research on how thousands of couples communicate and presents the strategies that worked best for them, where Gray's are more based on observations. This book gives practical step by step knowledge of how to communicate with your partner and the little snags that you run into day by day without even knowing it. I consider my partner and I very open and able to communicate with each other, but reading this book showed us that even we could use some improvement; it has helped me to see where my ability to communicate goes astray and gave me ways to work on them. The language is easy to understand and there are even practice exercises you can do with your significant other to review the information he presents. The book presents a whole program that you can do to help you communicate better with your mate or even anyone you come into contact with. If you are the kind of person who constantly is searching to improve your life, then this is a book for you!

I practiced psychotherapy in New York City for fourteen years. Though I had training as a marriage counselor in addition to my main training as a psychotherapist, I turned away more couples than I accepted. Most years, I didn't take on more than one or two couples, if that.

There were many reasons for this, but fundamentally it was that marriage counseling rarely works. (About thirty-five to forty percent of the time, and half of those relapse, according to the best research.) I had made a vow when I went into training that I would never take on patients that I did not honestly believe I could help. (I can't say that I kept that vow sterling, being human--but I tried.) Most couples, I believed, could not be helped, so I didn't want to take their money or waste their time.

In hard, cold truth, most of what most marriage counselors teach is just made up. Concocted. Without any sound research base. That's just a fact. When I was in training, I was utterly shocked at this. I was appalled at the simple-minded dogmatism of marriage-counseling orthodoxy.

Most mental health care has a flimsier basis in research than its proponents admit (or even know, often), but in marriage counseling, the paucity of good research was almost total. (This evaluation of the low scientific basis of mental health care is not some private crackpot theory of mine; I wrote it up in my book "Cultures of Healing," which was published by the book-publishing arm of Scientific American in 1995 and will be republished, under a different title--"Health and Suffering in America: The Context and Content of Mental Health Care"--next year by Transaction Publishers/Rutgers. My point here is not to plug my book so much as to tell you that I know whereof I speak, and to encourage you to take my recommendation here seriously.)

If I had known John Gottman's work back then, I would have had an entirely different approach to treating couples, and I would have taken more of them on. (No one in my three years of training ever mentioned Gottman, and I went to a pretty respectable institute. Gottman is just so at odds with conventional wisdom in the field that he wasn't even taken seriously.)

Gottman's opinions--though he denies that they are opinions--are based on admirable, extensive, carefully analyzed research. While there is much to criticize methodologically about this research, and it certainly is nowhere near as conclusive as he says, at least he has done real work--not sat around making stuff up and pawning it off on students and patients. His is the best research of which I (now, many years later) know. Even if it isn't knock-down-drag-out conclusive, it is much better to have opinions based on extensive research and attempts to understand it rigorously than on no research, wild speculation, wishful thinking, and wooly feelings. Gotttman's opinions are very good, for the most part.

This book does a nice job of conveying the gist of his work, in clear, practical form.

In my experience, most marriage counselors do more harm than good and teach more made-up nonsense that practical wisdom. So unless you can find someone who trained with Gottman, I'd say DON'T go to a marriage counselor--buy this book.

If you ARE seeing a marriage counselor, read this book and discuss with your counselor where his or her views differ. Ask for the basis for what your counselor does differently. Maybe it will make sense. But if your counselor is not open to the possibility of modifying his or her approach based on what you find valuable here, at least for your therapy, fire him. Or her. Whatever. Just run.

Why only four stars? Two reasons: (1) Gottman does not allow that for some significant minority, the difficluties in marriage are much more complex and intractable. E.g., while he is right that ordinary neuroses themselves do not kill marriage--so long as you marry someone whose neuroses match up with yours, or who can tolerate yours--it is certainly the case that some mental illnesses, such as paranoia and borderline personality, make marriage extremely hard. (2) A little humility on Gottman's part would make this book much easier to read and leave more room for the intelligent, wise reader to disagree, modify, and make it his or her own. Gottman is much too taken with himself, and while his research is more extensive and careful than most anything else done in the field, marriage counseling ain't physics (or biology or even sociology), and it certainly should not be granted the authority Gottman claims for it.

This isn't the final word on marriage, but it is about the best of the overly-many words that have heretofore been uttered.

Many people have asked me where to turn for advice when relationship problems begin. Many cannot afford the cost of counselling fees, and free services do not always have professional or qualified advisors. The question usually arises, "Are there any self-help books you would recommend?" This one will definitely be added to the list. "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" is based on some basic common sense values, yet they are not always practised in everyday life. Communication, honesty, trust and treating your partner with respect still top the list. With so many different types of families today, blended families, some legally married, some not, I would have prefered the authors make an effort to recognize all meaningful relationships with a commitment by titling the book, "the Seven Principles for Making Meaningful Relationships Work," and for this reason I gave the book four starts rather than five.

Schools teach us some very important elements, but two areas where they fall short is failing to teach money management, and failing to teach relationship values and communication. Unless you have zero money or an endless supply of it, everyone needs to manage money and most of us will, at some point in time, develop an intimate relationship with another individual. Schools teach us how to read, write and all that good stuff, but they do not teach us how to survive in the REAL WORLD! With the high divorce rate and relationship failures, there is clear evidence many couples can certainly use some help and advice in both these areas.

"The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" focuses on developing strong, positive meaningful relationships and how to keep that nurturing love and respect for each other. Regardless of whether your relationship is in deep trouble or you simply want to enhance the wonderful relationship you have, I highly recommend this excellent self-help book. It is one of the best books on this topic in the marketplace - sincere best wishes for your future happiness.

I loved this book, but am afraid it may be a bit misleading to the average couple. The book identifies things which are common to successful marriages, and offers great exercises for each principle. It is easy to read and understand and I highly recommend it.

However, I do have concerns that the author denigrates marriage counseling so often. I agree with him that communication is not always the key to successful relationships, but a good therapist will help the couple to use good communication while also creating a better relationship based on these principles. John Gottman conducts very important research into marriage relationships, and understanding the principles of a strong marriage is important. However, if the average couple were to take this book as a "to-do" list, it would not necessarily create a good marriage. These principles need to have belief and passion supporting them, the principles alone are not enough.

I highly recommend this book as a resource for integrating with other relationship resources.

Gottman presents a thorough look at the methodology used in his studies of marital interation and divorce prediction. I believe this text is a must for the bookshelves of professional researchers. Laypersons might enjoy his trade books written with Nan Silver.

Gottman's 1994 book comes on the heels of groundbreaking work in behavioral observation methodologies. Trained as a mathematician, Gottman spares us no quantified details. However, quantification and reliable measurement are the indispensible components of good scientific research of which Gottman's work is a nearly overwhelmingly thorough example. Gottman takes us back stage to the development and the testing of hypotheses about what makes marriages tick and what makes them wind down in very convincing fashion. I lecture from this text in my university course and student attention is usually very high and they ask many questions. The fact that Gottman can predict marital dissolution, in some instances, at better than 90%, is itself a testament to his rigourous and insightful work. Isn't that one of the main points of science: to predict?

This is perhaps one of the worst excuses for a scholarly text that I have ever encountered. The text fell significantly short of presenting disciplined research based conclusions regarding Domestic Violence. Rather, it presented a highly opinionated and politically correct rhetorical approach to the topic.

The distinction between Pits Bulls and Cobras was intriguing but only after one was able to overcome these extremely insulting and derogatory classifications.

Perhaps the worst part of this text was the meritless and unsubstantiated indictment of the Criminal Justice System. This system has literally bent over backwards to appropriately respond to situations of Domestic Violence. Often to the level where they are being accused as over reactionary.

Lastly, this text further separates and alienates those who stand on either side of this issue. It paints a bleak and almost hopeless possibility of fashioning a socially responsible response to a grave sociological reality.

This book provided little insight into abusive men in my opinion. The classifications were weak, and it had the reading quality of a children's book. Other books such as those by Donald Dutton (just to name one!) provide actually substantive information regarding domestic violence. This book should only be purchased after reading all other books concerning domestic and intimate violence; the price of this book is too much for the quality of inforamtion learned.

I use (and lose) this book regularly in my psychotherapy practice. It helps identify the obstacles to leaving an abusive relationship and how likely it is that the relationship can be changed. I particularly liked it's attitude of, "One size does NOT fit all" and the empahasis on tailoring the intervention to the specifics of the case.

This book offers common sense for marriages, but now it adds math. If both partners have the mathematics background and enjoy complex equations, this book is worth the value in entertainment. Modelling your marriage is just plain goofy, which adds to the novelty of this book.

If you don't enjoy sitting down and going through a math book doing the problems and setting up equations, this is not the book for you.