Book Review

Parenting from the Inside Out – How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive  by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and Mary Hartzell, M.Ed.

Over the years I have heard many parents say to me “I can only give what I got” as a response to questions about their parenting.  They were stating that the parenting they received as children impacted their parenting as adults and they were not able to do any better as a result.  This is only half true. 

In Dr. Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzell’s book, Parenting from the Inside Out, the reader is given an understanding of how our childhoods impact how we parent and what we can do to change some of those patterns in order to enhance and repair our relationships with our children and increase their resiliency.

The book is laid out in a way that is easily accessible.  There is information on brain science that is presented in terms that are understandable but is also as an addendum to each chapter so that it can be scanned over and reviewed later.  There are also exercises/questions for parents to use to go deeper in examining old patterns and making changes.

Dr. Siegel http://drdansiegel.com/about/biography/ is a clinical psychiatrist at the UCLA School of Medicine and has a done a number of TED talks on neurobiology that are easy to grasp for those of us who are not scientists.  Mary Hartzell is a child development specialist and parent educator http://maryhartzell.com/Welcome.html  Together they bring together an understanding of attachment theory, compassion and mindsight in a way that is non-blaming and empowering for parents who truly want to raise children who thrive.