Parenting From the Inside out : : how a Deeper Self-Understanding can Help you Raise Children who Thrive

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Skip the dry parts, the rest is SO useful submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 14, 2013, 7:58pm This book is simply outstanding. If, as a parent, you ever react to your children based out of your history instead of your current intentions, this book offers practical information and advice for how to shift the dynamics and parent the way you WANT to parent.

Two of the particulars that I found most fascinating were that children (and you can think of your children with you and your partner, or you with each of your parents) form separate attachments with each major caregiver, and so can easily be securely attached to one but insecurely attached to the other. A child's attachment is not an either/or condition as a whole, but rather is specific to each major player in their life. The other concept that I love is that beyond childhood, a person can still attain "earned-security status," as in, regardless of their childhood status, they can find an understanding of their story that allows them to move through life from a secure status. Read this as: regardless of how you were raised, you can piece it together in a way that will let you raise your own kids in a securely attached way.

And this book can help you find the right path. I skimmed the first couple of chapters to get to the attachment stuff, because the brain theory pieces were either familiar enough from college psych classes or didn't feel relevant to what I wanted to know now, but by the time I got to the attachment chapters, I was hooked.

(Edited to add: After writing my review, I've read reviews on GoodReads. They regularly say it's too academic and/or that the first few chapters are too dry. Definitely agree that the first chapters are dry and academic -- those are the ones I skipped because I didn't need to know about brain function to think about how history shapes interacting with my kids. I would strongly recommend, if the topic interests you, checking this one out of the library and starting with Chapter 5: How we attach: Relationships between children and parents. You can also easily skip the end-of-chapter sections called "Spotlight on Science" unless that really interests you. If you feel like you have to read every word of this one, I can see why it's too dry. But if you let yourself skip the irrelevant stuff and get to the outstanding parts, they have the potential to change everything. Just my two cents.)

Read this book! submitted by mdfalb on July 1, 2014, 6:04pm This book is amazing and Dan Siegel (the author) is too. If you want to understand yourself better and potentially be a better parent, this is a fantastic book.