I’d asked for this book for my birthday as I’d been desperate to read it for a while. I love reading books that could possibly help me as a person, and even better if they can help me become a better parent.
I started reading it about a week or so ago, and couldn’t believe how much the book made me realise about myself and my childhood, and how it’s affected my parenting. The book is written by psychotherapist Philippa Perry, and she includes a range of exercises for you to try to understand yourself and your child better. She also uses a number of case studies from different parents that she has helped over the years.
“No one was ever healed by being made to feel ashamed or silly …. You can use words to help validate how they see feeling, or maybe just loving gestures or looks”.
This particular quote from the book really resonated with me, as there were times growing up when I felt a certain way but wouldn’t tell anyone for fear of being made to look silly. I never want Grayson to feel that way.
I think this book is an important read for EVERY parent or soon-to-be parent , even if you think you’re the number 1 parent in the world (props to you if you are). You might find that you get frustrated when your child does something in particular, and this book helps you to look into yourself and ask why it bothers you.
It’s our job as parents to teach our child, and no one else’s. This book shows you that you are probably teaching your child lessons without even realising, and these aren’t always going to be positive ones.
One study in particular that I found incredibly interesting was when a set of parents contacted Pippa after their 10 year old had tried to commit suicide. The parents were horrified and didn’t understand why their son had tried this, they both worked but made time to do nice family things with him at the weekend and always made sure if one of them wasn’t with him that a family member was or a nanny of some sort. They thought they had a pretty great family life, and that their son was happy. They then looked into how their son was really feeling and realised how much of their actions he’d taken in just from watching them and changed whatever they could to help their son.
I found some parts of the book seriously hard to read, and I had to put it down occasionally to think about how I was treated as a child and how it’s effected how I treat Grayson now.
After finishing the book, it’s really helped me to take a step back and understand things from Grayson’s perspective. Which you may think is ridiculous, he’s only 18 months after all. BUT he is still a person regardless of what age he is (and he’s an incredible little person at that).
I’d recommend this book to absolutely everyone and anyone, even if you’re a great parent there are still ways to improve yourself.