The Reflective Parent: How to Do Less and Relate More with Your Kids
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
An innovative parenting approach empowering parents to trust their instincts and embrace uncertainty.
Figuring out how to raise happy, healthy, and successful kids can be overwhelming. Parents find themselves wading through tons of conflicting advice. Books that outline a “right way” of doing things can leave even the most dedicated caregiver feeling discouraged and inadequate when real life doesn’t measure up.
An experienced psychiatrist and founder of the Center for Reflective Communities, Regina Pally serves up something totally different in her book. She argues that the key to successful parenting is learning to slow down, reflect, and recognize that there is no one key to doing it right.
The Reflective Parent synthesizes the latest in neuroscience research to show that our brain’s natural tendencies to empathize, analyze, and connect with others are all we need to be good parents. Each chapter weaves together discussions of specific reflective parenting principles like “Tolerate Uncertainty” and “Repair Ruptures” with engaging explanations of the science that backs them up. Brief “Take Home Lessons” at the end of each chapter and vivid examples of parents and children putting the principles into action make this a highly readable, practical guide for anyone looking to build loving, lasting relationships with their kids.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Psychiatrist Pally (The Mind-Brain Relationship) centers her gentle, thoughtful, and non-judgmental parenting approach around "reflective capacity" the ability to understand other people's behaviors and responses as products of their internal mental states. By increasing empathy, she seeks to improve the central relationship between parent and child. Pally's choice to couch the justifications for her philosophy in introductory "brain basics" neurobiology is misplaced; the space occupied by that shallow science might be better used for exercises or additional parenting examples. However, she does have valuable insights into social psychology, the developing child mind, and how parenting style is affected by one's own childhood. Pally guides parents on how to take on the adult responsibilities of setting boundaries while using reflection to adjust responses to the child's needs and perspective. At the end of each chapter she gives examples of things parents can say to children, which adds to the book's usability. Illustrative "Stories of Parents and Children" feel stylized, and though her ideas are compassionate, Pally's voice is that of a teacher and not a peer. This tone works with her message of balance as a key to strong relationship building, but lacks the warmth some parents may need to feel supported.