Being at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst: Practical Compassion in Parenting

I received an advanced copy of this book for review.There are a lot of nice things about this book. The writing style is easy and conversational. There are plentiful examples and stories to keep you engaged and interested. There are plenty of educational facts to draw on and apply in your life. Before becoming an adoptive family, we were encouraged to examine not only our own familial upbringing and how it influenced our personality, but also our planned and current parenting. How to see our impact on our children and how our behavior influences them. All the things targeted to adoptive parents before becoming parents are contained in this book and directed to normal, average families. And the result for a normal, average family should be spectacular if you take the lessons to heart and actively apply them. I have experienced that success myself for the last 12 years.HOWEVERThere is no accommodation in this book for those children who have attachment issues. The information within is presented as A + B = C always, and ALL children will respond well to these approaches when that simply is not the case. A child with Reactive Attachment Disorder or Oppositional Defiance Disorder will chew this up and spit it out without blinking an eye. No, NOT every child is looking at their parent with loving eyes -- some of these children have a Mommy hole that is so broken into bits that normal parenting approaches just cause them to feel less secure and more destructive.Yes, these approaches work wonderfully with my attached children, and I would encourage any parent with a fairly normal family that wants to take it up a notch to give this a spin. As a dutiful parent I don't read the book and say, "Yay, I knew/do that" but actually "Yay! Am I doing that enough or as well as I can be?" I realize this book is not targeted to parents of children with deep behavioral issues but as a parent dealing with daily, serious, destructive behavioral challenges, my fear is that a parent in my shoes would read this book and feel even more guilt and responsibility than already heaped on them by society. I understand that silver bullets are needed to sell books but a simple nod to the fact that children are not all the same would have been appropriate and appreciated.

What a gift this book is! So concise, helpful and brilliant. I own all of Kim John Payne’s books and this one is my favorite to date!

Absolutely wonderful. I’m so so grateful for this book, this approach and these practices are profoundly helpful.

The book is great, however Amazon delivered it with a very dirty and smudged cover.

This is a relatively short parenting book that is packed with tools on how to react differently as a parent to stop escalating problems within the family. It is heavy on the metaphors and quite frankly I found it off-putting - "get on the balcony" what? Oh, I'm supposed to step back and observe. Just say that - why so many catch phrases? - BUT obviously I liked the content enough to keep the five star rating. Why? Although you'll have no idea what is in the book from the table of contents - Derailments over and over - so I'll let you know here. The author, Kim John Payne, M. ED, uses a combination of personal experiences, other parents experiences, and observations as an educator. I particularly loved that he also went to marketing towards kids seminar to observe how they sell to kids and parents - good job going the extra mile. The book takes a quick look at parenting styles from the past to current and the effect it's had on generations. For me, the parts where he gives examples of what parents are doing wrong were particularly gut wrenching because I had to admit I was guilty of the charges in making my kid's situations and behaviors worse. Uck, what a bummer and hard to look at - but I so appreciate the cold reality of what I was doing that made my kids act worse. SO, here's the good news if you're still with me. The second half of the book is full of how to calm your jets down, unpack your own personal baggage, and be able to be a more compassionate and therefore engaging and empowering parent.There is so much covered in this book and it's in digestible and applicably pieces, but I had to dog ear pages and go back a few times to what stood out for me. The author covers things like what you should do by following your moral compass versus what society is doing - ie I don't want my kids having a phone, but everyone else in their classroom has a phone. It covers your expectations and your own issues with your parents that you may be offloading onto your kids. He dives into rage, how your body feels in the moment, and breathing into a more peaceful parenting atmosphere.I'm a believer in meditation and visualization, so these parenting tools fit into my arsenal. Like I said previously, I requested the book because I was at my wits in butting heads with my youngest and I'm thankful I've been able to step on to the "balcony" and breathe before responding which has de-escalated some of our stand-offs. With school just starting it's a welcomed relief to witness my son's joy and happiness and less stress as he starts to navigate first grade. So thank you Kim John Payne, M.Ed for providing solutions that work if the parent is willing to take responsibility for their part in a messy relationship.

This is a must read for any parent who isn't perfect! That's all of us, probably. This book addresses a key part of parenting, dealing with the tense, hard, difficult times in the relationship between parent and child. Just focusing on this topic while reading a whole book was really valuable for me. This book really does a great job showing us what to do, and how to do it. For example, one chapter focuses on the two key ways to deal with a child's struggle--head on, and around the edges. This follows the pattern of how a physical or occupational therapist works on a body part that has a problem. First, they find out what's causing the issue and they work on that painful part directly. Many parents have blind spots, and don't really realize some of the things they're doing that causes a child to struggle. The book shows how to find those blind spots and help both the kids and the parents overcome them. Second, physical therapists and trainers don't stop with working on the problem directly. They work on all the body parts that are adjacent to the hurt area, and others that are connected. The book teaches parents how to identify what's hurting, and what parts of your child's life are connected to that hurt--and who to effectively heal both the hurts and other attached areas. The rest of the chapters are just as good. Great book. Highly recommend. If any of your relationships with a child or youth are struggling in some way, this is a great book to read. It really helped me.

A must read for anyone.