Medical doctor Medhus argues that the proper choice of words in adult- child communication can help adults avoid the two main errors of child-rasing: training children to make choices based on outside approval and hindering the natural development of their reasoning abilities. These errors can lead to low self-esteem, fear of failure, dependency, and other problems. She lists common adult uses of reactive, judgmental, dominating, and other negative words and provides alternatives that avoid the common pitfalls. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)