Top Book Recommendations- Parenting Edition
One of my favorite things to do is read. I have done it much, much less since having my daughter- but still find the time here and there. I just started committing to doing 30 minutes of reading a day and it’s been working out well.
I truly love reading books on parenting that align with my values, for multiple reasons. Not only does it help me on my personal journey of parenting my 16 month old, but I also feel that I gain so much valuable knowledge that helps me in my work as a sleep specialist. I love educating on attachment and reparenting, and I found this information to be so helpful to the clients I have worked with. I also love to hear from other people before reading a book if it was good/ helpful/ what type of parenting perspective it takes, so I hope this helps you determine if a book is meant for you or not!
So here are my top parenting book recommendations:
This book is about making sense of preschoolers (or anyone who acts like it!)- and is based on the relational developmental approach of Gordon Neufeld and attachment theory. If you have a preschooler- this book is so insightful. It talks about those moments where emotions are flying between happy to frustrated in .5 seconds, and how misunderstood these little people are during this time. She lays out the developmental reasons behind it, and really helps parents understand that their behavior is NOT personal! It’s not about you (the parent) at all! I feel as though this book really helped me shift my perspective into how lucky I am to help my child navigate such a difficult time for her little self. When I can remember that it’s not about me, everything becomes easier.
The book goes into how to preserve play in a digital world, why connection and relationships matter, boundaries and attachment, feelings and hurt, frustration and aggression, how adults grow young children up AND how young children grow adults up. There is even a section on bedtime and separation.
My favorite line from the book is “Children are not meant to work for love. They are meant to rest in someone’s care so that they can play and grow; this is why relationships matter.” I love this. It is such a wonderful reminder that our children are meant to play- our society has such a heavy focus on learning, educational and academic achievements from a young age- but we are forgetting that they can learn everything they need to through play. Giving them the gift of rest in our care so that they can play, is one of the best things we can do as parents.
I love this book! One of my all time favorites, as a parent and as a person. Shefali Tsabary (author) is one of my new favorite experts and you can find a lot of great stuff from her on youtube. I love that this book truly focuses on transforming yourself, the parent- which will ultimately help you become the parent you want to be. This book is the opposite of any traditional parenting book you have read- shifting away from the “parent-child dynamic” of the parent knows all to a mutual parent-child relationship in which both parent and child learn together to help one another grow (similar to the concept from yesterdays book in which parent and child help “grow each other up”.)
One of my favorite parts of this book is it’s focus on being the parent your child needs you to be. A lot of us have the desire to become the parent we needed as a child, but our children are separate beings and have their own needs/desires, which may be unlike our own. She really focuses on becoming conscious enough to identify who and what your child needs from you as a parent. In chapter 10, the entire focus is on parenting from “wholeness” instead of your wounds. I think this chapter is so helpful- how many of us parent on a daily basis without thinking about (or, unconsciously), and therefore are parenting from your own childhood wounds? Lastly, chapter 13 focuses on shelving your expectations for your child. How beautiful it is to be able to help your child grow into who they are meant to be, instead of trying to get them (unconsciously) to meet your expectations of who you desire them to be.
If you are looking to further your knowledge of who you are, how to find your authentic self and how to become a more conscious parent as you do so- this book is 100% for you. I truly feel it has helped me as I develop the relationship that I (consciously) want to have with my daughter and how to help her grow into her true self.
I first discovered this book through a conference I attended (shout out to @raisedgood, she brings in the best speakers to her conference). This book is officially titled “No Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind” This book is all about providing a nurturing and calming roadmap (if you know me, I’m all about roadmaps- with my clients, I provide roadmaps - but the actual direction a person chooses to take is up to them- this is where your intuition means everything!) to help parents navigate tantrums, tears and tension. It helps parents figure out how to turn these big emotions into opportunities for growth, and I am here for it. Far too often I hear about parents distracting their children away from tantrums and tears- but the best way to grow from those emotions is to go through them, to learn from them, to feel them. This is for parents who want to get away from typical separation based discipline practices. It also comes with a companion guide!
Reclaiming Our Students
For all my fellow teachers/counselors/educators out there- this book is for you! I love this book so much and have used it in district meetings with my School Counselors (I oversee a team of 20 counselors).
“In this book, You’ll learn:
How to build, feed, and protect the student-teacher relationship
Why children are anxious or bossy, aggressive or checked out, and what teachers can do to address these behavioral issues at their root
How you can help students and classes shift their identity as the “problem student” or “bad class"
Experiential activities for students of all ages that preserve and restore emotional health and well-being”
The best part is this book comes with a free copy of their 60 page handbook with classroom activities to restore emotional health and wellbeing in students. This is so worth it.
Gosh, I wish I knew about and read this one before I became a parent. This is for all you soon-to-be parents who want to be educated on safe bedsharing before your baby arrives, or for you parents in the thick of it who want to bedshare but have been told it’s not safe over and over. Dr. James McKenna (I’ve heard him speak personally during my pediatric sleep certification course) has truly dedicated his life's work to studying safe bed sharing practices and goes into it all in his book.
Here is an excerpt from the amazon description “In Safe Infant Sleep, the world's authority on cosleeping breaks down the complicated political and social aspects of sleep safety, exposes common misconceptions, and compares current recommendations to hard science. With the latest information on the abundant scientific benefits of cosleeping, Dr. James J. Mckenna informs readers about the dangers of following over-simplified recommendations against the age-old practice, and encourages parents to trust their knowledge and instincts about what is and is not safe for their baby.”
Children’s Book Recommendations:
If you have ever said- I just want my child to apologize- this book is for you! The Sorry Plane “carries a profound message about the importance of connecting with our authentic emotions. It highlights how a good sorry is one that you mean from the heart and how we adults can preserve a child’s caring spirit.”
I love this book and plan to put it in all my friends' baby shower gifts moving forward!
This is a story about a boy who keeps throwing away his drawings because they are “no good”, but his sister is collecting them as he throws them away. His sister shows him that there are things more valuable than just getting something perfectly right. This is a great story for children who are showing perfectionistic tendencies and I always recommend this to my counselors to use in school counseling sessions.
Books on my list for 2022:
I hope to read this early on this year, it is written by the same author as The Conscious Parent and I just love what she is doing for parents and parenting. She truly is disrupting the traditional ways of parenting and I am here for it.
Description from her site: “All parents have aspirations for their children. But often these turn into crushing expectations that cause real harm and disillusionment at the most important time in a child’s development. Parenting should not be a competition with winners and losers. Parents need to recognize their children for who they actually are, and in her groundbreaking new book, Dr. Shefali Tsabary challenges the modern myths of parenting that define how a child is “supposed to be.” Instead of holding our children to society’s impossible ideals, Dr. Shefali teaches us how to control our expectations, embrace the present moment, and let go of the anxiety surrounding how best to parent our children. Written in the style of her New York Times bestseller,The Conscious Parent, The Awakened Family draws from Eastern philosophy as well as Western psychology to offer enlightened advice and a clear program for raising confident, conscious children who are true to themselves.”
Written by two of my favorite people to learn from, Dr. Gabor Mate and Dr. Gordon Neufeld (I’m sure you know by now I am currently enrolled in his intensive 1 course and am just enthralled in what he teaches every week).
Description from the site: “In the book Hold On To Your Kids, International authority on child development Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., joins forces with bestselling author Gabor Maté, M.D., to tackle one of the most disturbing trends of our time: children today increasingly look to their peers for direction—their values, identity, and codes of behavior. This “peer orientation” undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated; being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.”