Thriving Children begin with Family, Community

Sustaining communities, thriving children begin with family, says researcher…

About the author: Richard S. Kordesh earned a PhD from Indiana University at Bloomington. He has worked professionally in the community development field for 35 years and has taught community development and public policy courses. He and his wife, Maureen, have four children. They live in Oak Park, Ill., where they practice and learn from the ever-changing productive family habitat lifestyle.

New guide links family productivity to childhood, community development

OAK PARK, Illinois –
Is your community the place you want for your child? What it lacks might be the productive power of yours and others’ families.

Through his experiences as a planner, professor, husband and father, community development expert Richard S. Kordesh has developed a model he calls ‘family-generated community building,’ describing how productive families are the source of energy for effective community development – and, thus, successfully raising children. He explains his model in his new book, Restoring Power to Parents and Places.

“To progress successfully through all of their stages of development, children need to grow up in good communities,” says Kordesh. “Good communities do not occur without viable, productive families. If we want communities to become more capable of educating children effectively, generating sustainable economic development, reducing crime and so on, we have to restore power to the productive family.”

In …Restoring Power to Parents and Places…, Kordesh explains how a family that grows some of its own food, prepares its own meals, operates its own business, teaches its children, creates healthy living practices or engages in other such proactive endeavors strengthens the community it lives in and fortifies the future of its children. Children who are raised in productive families learn to be producers themselves, which continues the cycle within the community.

Though economic and political factors can undermine and even break-up families, Kordesh offers parents, professionals and policymakers realistic suggestions for combating those threats by updating traditional family practices, opening new paths to responsible fatherhood and revitalizing the family’s productive capabilities. “Communities, not just schools, educate kids – but don’t do so effectively without engaged, teaching families,” Kordesh says. “We have to renew the ability of families to be productive and resourceful in order to build up these communities and guarantee a good future for our children.”

Restoring Power to Parents and Places… By Richard S. Kordesh…
Paperback $14.95 | ISBN: 9781462048717
Hardcover $24.95 | ISBN: 9781462048724
E-book $3.99 | ISBN: 9781462048731
Available at www.amazon.com