Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive: 10th Anniversary Edition Paperback – Illustrated, December 26, 2013

One of the best books I have ever read.

Must have!

This was a good read.

At last psychology and psychiatry have got off Freudian nonesense. (Freud was pretty sensible until he underwent a fairly sudden change of mental state and his close colleagues such as Reich and Jung thus parted ways. This indicates to me some sort of psychotic break, which neuroscience now goes a long way toward identifying and explaining. I mean, really, all little boys just want to have sex with their mums? and psychologists just accepted that witout question?) I found this book helpful for sorting out my own childhood and life as well. After sixty years I discovered all my attempting to make sense of my life was nothing but "flooding" and "preoccupation" on what was wrong (leading to self-negation, blame, depression). If you want to finally understand the understanding that passes blaming, try this book and this author. Learn what constitutes actually "making sense" of your life. If you want to have confidence as a parent whom whose kids won't grow up blaming, what could be simpler and more natural than caring "contingent response"? Just let yourself love them and them love you! My first exposure to the work of Dr. Siegel was a six-hour audio series called "The Neurobiology of We" (published by Sounds True). It really makes this psychology backed by real science understandable, at which this book, unfortunately, doesn't do as much for me. Nevertheless, it has its very valuable contributions to make as well. This new science gives me real hope for our world. Imagine a world of, say, just eighty percent "secure attached"!

I liked this book overall. I thought the explanations for why kids behave like they do were good, and how our reactions as adults can overwhelm us also makes sense. But some of the "deeper" explanations were either overwhelming or questionable. Specifically I am talking about1) The scientific explanations overall were quite dense and overly detailed. I did appreciate them, just thought they should have been paired down.2) The notion of attachment theory is not universally accepted these days by the scientific community. This book presents it as absolute fact and then basically says it's your fault as a parent if your child is not securely attached by age 1. Not sure if that's the right message to give to new parents.3) Same with the left/right brain dichotomy. It's a useful way of thinking about things, but at the same time it's been somewhat debunked (there doesn't seem to be a complete isolation, like the author claims) and in my opinion was presented too dogmatically as well.That being said, this book was written a while ago, before some of the new research came out for #2/3. So it's not as much the author's fault necessarily, more just something to keep in mind as the reader and something that makes this book less useful in my opinion.But overall I thought it had good advice on how to de-escalate interactions with children and how to think about them, and it's worth reading for that.

I found this to be a great read. It helped me understand that in order to gain more patient I first must regulate my own emotions and triggers. My greatest take away is to take care of ones self first and it will spill over into creating a healthy connections with my little one.

Sadly I think that there are more parents in the US who ARE clueless, who struggle as parents and perhaps crave guidance V.S. those who actually got what they needed in early childhood development and slip easily into the shoes of their parenting role.I feel sorry that some people who have read this book have resorted to the comfort of their critical, judgmental thought process and found the work lacking for one reason or another. They have missed the lesson that was repeated throughout the book. - approach your world and your child with a curious, open, accepting and loving mental stance. Let me say that this is NOT a book about permissive parenting with out appropriate boundaries. It does suggest that we have to be introspective first before we can open our mind and become available to be taught by other's perspectives. In order to maintain that teachable moment in our self, we have to be able to make sense of our own mental filters. If we don't come to terms with our own mind, how will we ever come to terms with some one else's?Our schools are suffering the consequence of linear mental processing with no integration with right brain activity. Kids are forced to march in unison with no flexibility for individualization or remediation without great shame - (pulling kids out for special ed. or tutoring that could be integrated into class structure if curriculum wasn't so restrictive).If we don't create passion for learning early enough for our children, they are doomed to shut down. Then the remediation becomes far more complex than just educational remediation. Trust and rapport must be won, before an attempt can be made to address vulnerabilities and areas of weakness. Teaching occurs only when there is an environment of trust and compassion. Fear can teach in the moment, but the lessons are not the best or the most sustainable, and can backlash into resentment and anger.This is an attempt to open a dialogue based on MANY individual research projects that have come to similar realizations about how the brain develops and how we integrate knowledge.The only way society is ever going to move forward is if we can collectively suspend our critical and judgmental thought process and start to think in a more open, curious, and global way. What are the odds that we can make that happen when people discount the whole after taking exception to one or two statements? What filters are they overlaying when the dialogue as a whole is deemed invalid based on their perception of one or two ideas?I urge ANYONE who anticipates or is currently working with children to make the effort and read this book in its entirety with an open heart and mind. I believe the keys to a successful future society are contained within the content of these pages.