2.5 out of 5 stars
Parenting is never easy. There is no right way to do it, but there are plenty of wrong ways and for those that are interested there are a plethora of books out there that claim to provide all the advice that you will ever need in raising your genetic heritage. This, however, comes with the by-line, this is a parenting book for people who don’t buy parenting books, which is quite a bold claim. Psychotherapist Philippa Perry is well placed to make this claim with two decades of experience of case studies and her own experience of being a parent. She concentrates on the bigger picture of being a parent rather than the minutia, concentrating on the relationship and how important that is to their well being.
We have successfully managed to get our firstborn all the way through to adulthood as she was 18 earlier this year. Not totally sure how we managed that, but we did. We were never perfect and reading this has highlighted some errors, but I wish this was around all those years ago when she was first born. If you are starting to hear yourself saying the things that your parent did then it is probably high time that you read this. It is full of sensible advice, but I wished it had more on teenagers, as it is mostly toddler focused. It does have sensible suggestions though and she re-iterates all the way through that these are suggestions and you sometimes need to go with your gut instinct.
Oooh, that’s a great recommendation – I swear a big part of what puts me off having kids at all is the idea of repeating the same mistakes! I do have friends who are parents, naturally, and I’ve forwarded all of them links to the theory of Good Enough parenting (which I studied in my psych undergrad) – might have to pass this one along too 😉 Thank you!
It was worth reading, though I wish it had been out 18 years ago!