Engaging with parenting books can be an invaluable resource for parents seeking to enhance their children’s upbringing, health and wellbeing.
These five books on parenting offer a wealth of advice, evidence-based research and practical tips that empower you with the knowledge and tools necessary to navigate child-rearing complexities.
Discover how important it is to read to your child here.
1. How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
This bestselling classic by internationally acclaimed experts Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish considers communication between parents and children. It includes fresh insights and suggestions, as well as the authors’ time-tested methods to solve common problems and build foundations for lasting relationships, including innovative ways to:
- Cope with your child’s negative feelings, such as frustration, anger, and disappointment
- Express your strong feelings without being hurtful
- Engage your child’s willing cooperation
- Set firm limits and maintain goodwill
- Use alternatives to punishment that promote self-discipline
- Understand the difference between helpful and unhelpful praise
- Resolve family conflicts peacefully
Enthusiastically praised by parents and professionals worldwide, Faber and Mazlish’s down-to-earth, respectful approach makes relationships with children of all ages less stressful and more rewarding.
2. The Whole-Brain Child: Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind
Your toddler throws a tantrum in the middle of a store. The preschooler refuses to get dressed. A fifth-grader sulks on the bench instead of playing on the field. Do children conspire to make their parents’ lives endlessly challenging? No – it’s just their developing brain calling the shots.
In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson, demystify the meltdowns and aggravation. Furthermore, they explain the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures.
The ‘upstairs brain’, which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the left brain’s logic. No wonder kids can seem – and feel – out of control. Applying these discoveries to everyday parenting allows you to turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth. Raise calmer, happier children using 12 key strategies.
3. No-Drama Discipline
Highlighting the fascinating link between a child’s development and how a parent reacts to misbehaviour, No–Drama Discipline provides an effective and compassionate road map for dealing with tantrums, tensions, and tears – without causing a scene.
Defining the true meaning of the ‘d’ word (to instruct, not to shout or reprimand), authors Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson explain how to reach your child, redirect emotions, and then turn a meltdown into an opportunity for growth. As a result, the cycle of negative behaviour (and punishment) is essentially halted, as problem-solving becomes a win/win situation.
Candid stories as well as playful illustrations bring the authors’ suggestions to life. No-Drama Discipline shows you how to work with your child’s developing mind, peacefully resolve conflicts, inspire happiness and strengthen resilience in everyone in the family.
4. The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read
The most influential relationships are between parents and children. And yet, for many families, these relationships can veer off track.
In The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry shows how strong and loving bonds are made with your children and how such attachments give a better chance of good mental health in childhood and beyond.
She’ll help you to:
– Understand how your own upbringing may be impacting your parenting style
– Contain, express, accept and validate your own and your child’s feelings
– Understand that all behaviour is communication
– Break negative cycles and patterns
– Accept that you will make mistakes and what to do about them
Almost every parent loves their children, but by following the refreshing, sage and sane advice and steps in this book, you’ll also find yourselves liking one another too.
Read our article on mindfulness and how it helps reduce pressure.
This inspirational and timely guide is about how mindfulness helps children, why it’s becoming more popular and how to do it. It combines practical exercises that children can complete alongside their parents or carers with a fun and engaging commentary on the theory and science behind the practice. Author Uz Afzal takes you through the day, from waking, eating, learning and appreciating to sleeping. It also includes exercises to cope with exams and the screen culture. It gives the reader an enjoyable and accessible path into mindfulness practice for children.
Many schools cannot include mindfulness in their curricula, and educators and parents alike are eager to have more guidance on supporting children. This current era of rising levels of child mental health, with the pressures in schools and the increasingly fast-paced, digitised and image-obsessed world, is having a really negative effect.
Mindfulness for Children is a positive and practical tool that will give children the skills to manage their feelings, increase their confidence and concentration levels, and aid their transition to secondary school. It can help parents and caregivers, too, by promoting happiness and relieving stress.
