Parents looking for a 'spiritual' guide to raising their children need look no
further than Barry Long's extraordinary book. But there is nothing soft and
mystical about his work - his spirituality is grounded in the everyday world
where we must face up to who we are all the time.

To be good parents we must rid ourselves of the unhappiness within us before
we can do the same for our children, he argues. Just like our children, we love
to hide behind our petty angers and hurts, and we revel in our emotional roller-coasters. But we have to be straight and true to what is really 'us' and not give
in to the unwelcome emotional guest who causes endless damage to our relationships.

'Raising Children' deals in an a unique and refreshing way with many aspects
of family life, from discipline, creating boundaries, dealing with outbursts, introducing ideas of God and death, and handling the tricky adolescent problems
of sex and drugs. Education and learning - a subject very close to Barry Long's heart - is another very important element of this book, which is more like a
primer for field work in family spirituality.

To those who already know the work of Barry Long, 'Raising Children' is
probably his most important work so far, and not just because the the next generation needs to end the insanity we have introduced to this planet. It is important because it deals with a wide range of fundamental issues in its
400 pages in a simple and direct way. If Barry Long's love is impersonal and
remote - as he says love really is - it also has a warm and compassionate side, which this book draws from him.

To those who have never encountered Barry Long before, you are in for an invigorating journey, face-to-face with one of the world's most direct, simple spiritual masters who also happens to know all about paying the bills every month!

Your family will thank you for buying this book.


Natural Parent UK

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Teachers and parents are facing major dilemmas at present. Children seem
to want real answers more than ever before, and are insisting to be heard
when they ask why they should behave in certain ways and learn certain things.
This is challenging for adults, as it sorely tests their own convictions,
philosophies and self-knowledge. For many teachers and parents, this leaves
them feeling at a loss and powerless. Many return to authoritarian models,
or give dishonest or inadequate answers which leave the child and adult
unhappy and restless.

Barry Long's new book RAISING CHILDREN IN LOVE JUSTICE AND TRUTH is
an extraordinary text and manual for people who truly want to live intelligent,
happy lives and raise their children accordingly.

All humans are screaming for this understanding, as our kids shun paths they
know do not work, and look in dangerous corners for truth. Adults know they
are unhappy, and their relationships are lacking. How does one grow in love?
Know when to leave a loveless partnership? Raise one's children to be
truthful and happy, when the parents are not?

Barry Long, in this straightforward book, answers questions from parents
around the world in a simple, compassionate and highly useful way. From his
own experiences as a parent, he shows us how to teach children to recognise
the feeling of love. He explains the high cost of excitement and dishonesty.
He shows parents why it is so important to get their own love right first,
and how to correctly speak to their children, for mutual respect e.g. (p375).
He teachers children to as "Why?", and then listens to the answer. Then he demonstrates how to assess for themselves whether the answer was the truth.
He advises parents with higher-level information, simply.

Be warned. This book is a new way of seeing life intelligently. There is
nothing superficial or superfluous here, yet it is compellingly readable.

Our children are inundated with rubbish, and it is rare parents who have the
time and know-how to discriminate effectively, much less to educate their
child about life and sexuality when they have not yet got it right. Kids are
rarely told the truth about love.

Every now and again one sees a family who has 'got it right'. They stand
out. Their children walk strongly in love and truth, and tell you when they
are unsure. 'Raising Children' covers more practical truth on how families
can reach that place than anything that has gone before.

As an educator, I wish teachers were more trained and ready to work with
such simple, profound truth. In my experience, it's only in very rare schools
that this happens. After twenty years of teaching and vast experience of
schools, I have seldom encountered such aspiring individuals and schools.

Those who read this book, will find these simple truths are absorbed subtly
and totally. Barry Long's manner and language are direct and profound.
No-one taught us about children like this.

I sincerely recommend this book to anyone who works with, lives with, or
has children, and wants to get it right.


Book review for EDUCATIONAL ORGANISATIONS and JOURNALS
by Kerry Wright
Teacher

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A slew of books have been published recently that deal with childraising from a spiritual perspective. . .While this reflects the spiritualization of everyday life that has become popular in recent years there is also a real need for approaches to concrete life situations in the context of a teaching.

Two unorthodox contemporary teachers have recently published books on childraising. Lee Lozowick and Barry Long both have a direct and uncompromising approach to transformation and have many students around the world . . .While these books may have been produced in response to interest by the authors' students, they are also aimed at a more general audience. As spiritual teachers
who work directly with others to undo much of the problematic conditioning found
in adults these days, both Long and Lozowick say that one of their primary aims
is to increase the number of capable and balanced human beings on this planet.

Both books begin with the reminder that the birth of a child means that a being
from another dimension is incarnating in this world. They emphasize the
abruptness of the transition of birth and suggest ways to ensure that the new
being feels welcomed, comfortable and oriented. For example, they suggest
telling infants, in a normal conversational tone, what's going on around them, whether or not the actual words are understood, the tone and vibration of the parent's voice will carry a message of love and support.

Both authors also emphasize that children mirror their parents, providing another impetus for adults to work on themselves and model compassionate, gentle and appropriate behaviour. . . Long provides advice on incorporating children - if they wish - into one's meditation practice, though he, like Lozowick, discourages any formal religious instruction.

On other points the two authors diverge . . . One of the central tenets of [Long's] teaching is the importance of the relationship between men and women and in his first chapter he tells parents that their relationship should not be made secondary
by the addition of children to the family. 'You have to put the love of your partner before the love of your child. The two of you come first', he insists.

Long also advocates what might appear to be a certain distance and coldness. Because his teaching includes the rejection of subjective feelings, he encourages parents to be rational and unemotional with their children, allowing them to cry uncomforted if the child cannot supply the reason for his tears. Nevertheless Long does not shy away from confronting the more difficult aspects of childraising and
he provides specific responses, sample admonitions and the like. He also outlines
a very simple exercise (to be presented to the child as a game) to help children ground a sense of 'good' in their bodies and to help them learn how to control negative moods and emotions. His aim is expressed in very simple terms: keeping unhappiness out of one's home and life by confronting negative emotions when-
ever they arise. . .

Long's book is much more overtly infused with the author's teaching methods
than is Lozowick's; while Long does not normally use or endorse any other
teachings in his work, Lozowick incorporates whatever he finds useful . . . As a whole, however, both books provide glimpses of how a spiritual approach taught
by a living teacher can be applied to one of the central demands of life. In doing
so they provide the reader with the flavour of the authors' work as well as
offering two more perspectives on an age-old issue.

Gnosis USA

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Barry Long's approach is not stern, nor is he a harsh disciplinarian. In fact his approach to parenting treats children with great respect for their natural
intelligence and is imbued with striking compassion for their fate. He offers real alternatives to the failures of communication, resentment and squabbling that is
so often the norm. He proposes an education based on observation and the enjoyment of life, and a family life where no unhappiness is allowed to linger.
The evidence that this is not just pipe-dreams, but a practical possibility, is in his new book 'Raising Children' which is based on literally hundreds of conversations with mums, dads and children.

This book is an exceptional compendium of wise advise and it will be a revelation
of just what went wrong in their own childhood to many readers.


New Age Guardian Australia

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Barry Long is widely accepted as a teacher, so this book will already have a niche readership where it will function as a further guide to those working towards
infusing this teaching within the fabric of their daily lives. What is more valuable then, is what a book of this nature may mean to those not acquainted with Barry Long and the nuances of his teaching. One has the sense that Long's seminal teaching is presented here, but with a focus on how these teachings assist in creating more loving, more just and more truthful parents. While the book is
entitled 'Raising Children in Love, Justice and Truth', thereby endeavouring to
create children who hopefully will emulate these qualities or wonderful aspects
of Being, in the final analysis this is what he exhorts the parents to be.

The book is written in frank, honest terms, and is styled along the lines of what is recognisable as a traditional exchange between student and master in the format
of an open question and answer. The teachings are to the parents, who are seen
as the conduits to the children. What is most refreshing is Long's sustained refrain
to the parents, insisting that the parent never ask of the child what he or she
cannot be. The teachings are meant to be transformative and not merely didactic. And the process of transformation is meant to be frankly unromantic‹very real
and articulated in the minute to minute execution of one's life. Minute to minute,
for as every parent would know, parenting can indeed divide a single day into
many transient segments, and not necessarily seamlessly stitched together.

Because there are several categories of care-givers in our society, aside from
those obviously recognisable as parents, the book's audience embraces wider circles of affinal relations; the countless aunts and uncles and grandparents to
whom the child will also look for answers. The book is also a valuable resource
book for teachers, by laying bare the fact that learning is a mutual process where the teacher is meant to guide the child to what is already known, although not yet realised. In a system where a teacher is responsible for not one but several dozen eager and demanding young minds, the book can serve as a not-so-traditional,
yet vital textbook.

The task of a parent is exceptionally difficult and is fraught with many anxieties. Barry Long's book on how to nurture a child through to adulthood offers many answers to questions often asked and ones that were not thought to ask. His teachings provide insights on how to gently extricate the material world and its overload of aggressive sensational images, and quietly bring the child back to the child's own inner centre. The teaching that strikes a deep resonance is the exhortation to bring the child closer to the earth, to reinforce what is already in a child; that is, the appreciation of a simple flower or the delicacy of a breeze so the earth itself acts to be a teacher. What is also enlightening to parents is Long's appeal that we do not teach the child to believe in (a doctrinaire) God, but rather
to 'invite' a sense of quiet that allows an 'experience' of God.

Don't fool yourself though, reading this work won't make a better parent of either
of us. It is a book that makes clear the work that needs to be done. One also
cannot help wondering at times at the pragmatism of Long's teaching when confronted with a loudly resentful and screaming child. One also wonders how Long's own experiences (the relationship with Simon, Long's stepson must necessarily have been different when the child went to live with his mother) compare with our own sustained relationship with children that remain in our care for twenty odd years. The book, though, is able to withstand these doubts by the sheer strength of its honesty.

It is a book that I relished reading and a book that invites many re-readings.

Noumenon South Africa

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Some other comments:

Practical guidance in many aspects of parenting, offering the reader a new vision
of family life.
Caduceus UK


Whether you are the parent of toddlers or teenagers, this book offers something
for everyone.
'Kids in Brisbane' magazine Australia


The intentions of this book are admirable though a title like this proves a bit daunting. But Long sets out to show parents how to examine their own lives and beliefs to strive for the highest in their child-rearing. . . Long doesn¹t provide all
the answers, nor does he set out to. Parents grow and learn alongside their
children and this book aims to make that job easier and more rewarding for all.
Sunday Times Perth, WA


I found many very specific examples of how to handle childhood behavior.
Although I might differ with Long on some points, I find his suggestions practical
and helpful.
The New Times USA


Dear Barry - It's a great pleasure to be reading your book, 'Raising Children'.
I find it very clarifying and practical and particularly appreciate the helpful, balanced, accepting attitude. The way it is enlivened with your own and others personal experience makes it particularly approachable. Thank you for the book.
Letter from a reader