Three favorite 2020 books on parenting and mental health

For a lot of fam­i­lies, par­ent­ing has nev­er been hard­er than it was this year. Many have been strug­gling for months try­ing to pro­vide child care and school­ing at home while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work­ing either along­side their chil­dren or as essen­tial work­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty, if they haven’t already lost their jobs.

The theme that emerges across our favorite par­ent­ing books of the year is how impor­tant con­nec­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are. These 2020 books offer sci­ence-based prac­ti­cal tips and sam­ple scripts to help you com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter with your chil­dren, build clos­er rela­tion­ships, and set them up for hap­pi­ness and resilience in life.

The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired, by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

What’s the sin­gle most impor­tant thing I can do for my kids to help them suc­ceed and feel at home in the world?,” ask Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson in The Pow­er of Show­ing Up. Their answer: Show up for them and be phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly, and emo­tion­al­ly present.

This is not always easy, they acknowledge—especially dur­ing a time when work and fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties are both hap­pen­ing at home for many par­ents. But focus­ing on this one task can help you alle­vi­ate the con­stant wor­ry about doing the right thing and let go of parental perfectionism.

The goal of show­ing up is to nur­ture a secure attachment—a strong bond that’s forged by par­ents being sen­si­tive, respon­sive, and reli­able to children’s needs. With this pre­dictable and warm ref­er­ence point for what a rela­tion­ship is, chil­dren feel more con­fi­dent in under­stand­ing the world and are bet­ter pre­pared to explore it, rather than feel­ing stressed because the world seems so unpredictable.

The Pow­er of Show­ing Up sum­ma­rizes the host of ben­e­fits that a secure attach­ment brings to chil­dren, includ­ing stronger rela­tion­ships with par­ents, friends, and roman­tic part­ners; bet­ter cop­ing skills; high­er self-esteem; stronger lead­er­ship skills; and bet­ter aca­d­e­m­ic performance.

Siegel and Bryson break down how to show up into four Ss: feel­ing safe, seen, soothed, and secure. What strate­gies can par­ents use to pro­vide the four Ss to their kids?

To help kids feel safe, pledge not to be a source of fear at home, make amends to repair rup­tures in your rela­tion­ship, and nur­ture a feel­ing that home is a haven. Help kids feel seen by being curi­ous about them rather than mak­ing assump­tions or judg­ments, and have con­ver­sa­tions so that you can enter their world. To help them feel soothed, par­ents can offer affec­tion and show kids how to use calm­ing strate­gies when they’re upset. Feel­ing secure comes from all of the above, as well as help­ing kids learn that they have inher­ent worth and the capac­i­ty to offer them­selves safe­ty and soothing.

Confident Parents, Confident Kids: Raising Emotional Intelligence in Ourselves and Our Kids—from Toddlers to Teenagers, by Jennifer Miller

In Con­fi­dent Par­ents, Con­fi­dent Kids, Jen­nifer Miller busts myths that many par­ents have about con­fi­dence, a qual­i­ty that most of us want our kids to gain. Accord­ing to Miller, it’s not about being an extro­vert, gain­ing pow­er at all costs, hav­ing a high IQ, get­ting straight As in school, or repress­ing our feel­ings. Confidence—feeling sure of your own abilities—comes down to emo­tion­al competence.

To teach that emo­tion­al com­pe­tence, Miller has worked to sup­port par­ents, edu­ca­tors, and kids with social and emo­tion­al learn­ing for over 25 years. There are five keys to help our kids devel­op these impor­tant skills: mod­el­ing (shar­ing how you deal with big feel­ings), coach­ing (guid­ing kids to find their own solu­tions), prac­tic­ing (iden­ti­fy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to try new skills), cre­at­ing pos­i­tive learn­ing envi­ron­ments (nur­tur­ing emo­tion­al­ly safe spaces), and appre­ci­at­ing (cel­e­brat­ing small steps).

Miller shares insights to help par­ents under­stand kids dur­ing dif­fer­ent life stages, from birth to the teenage years. For exam­ple, preschool­ers and ear­ly school-aged chil­dren expe­ri­ence many tran­si­tions in their lives—including dai­ly trav­el from home to school to after-care and back home, with dif­fer­ent rules and rela­tion­ships with adults in each setting—at a time when they are still devel­op­ing the skills to think flex­i­bly across set­tings. These tran­si­tions can elic­it lots of big feel­ings. She pro­vides age-appro­pri­ate tips for par­ents to help cul­ti­vate children’s self-con­trol and self-man­age­ment skills, like mak­ing rules about screens, prac­tic­ing deep breath­ing, cre­at­ing a safe base to go to when they have big feel­ings, and reflect­ing togeth­er about anger using children’s books.

Miller sprin­kles par­ent­ing sce­nar­ios into her book that bring to life how research-based, prac­ti­cal strate­gies can be used in every­day moments with our kids. “In a prac­ti­cal way, chil­dren raise par­ents,” she explains. “As we become more reflec­tive about our own beliefs and edu­cat­ed about development—our children’s and our own—we gain enough mas­tery to res­onate, to impro­vise, and to build up an increas­ing­ly com­plex, deli­cious sound that offers us deep joy, sat­is­fac­tion, and mean­ing beyond our wildest imaginings.”

Ready or Not: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Uncertain and Rapidly Changing World, by Madeline Levine

Anx­i­ety is now the num­ber-one men­tal health dis­or­der for both adults and chil­dren,” writes psy­chol­o­gist Made­line Levine. “Ready or Not is about address­ing that anx­i­ety. It is about the dam­age unchecked anx­i­ety does to par­ents’ deci­sion-mak­ing at the very moment we need greater, not less­er, clar­i­ty about every­thing from which preschool will best nour­ish our tod­dler to which uni­ver­si­ty will be the best fit for our high-school senior.”

The con­se­quences of par­ent and child anx­i­ety are evi­dent in five main areas, Levine writes. Par­ents’ unrea­son­able expec­ta­tions can put a tremen­dous amount of pres­sure on kids and con­strict the space they need for deep learn­ing, lead­ing to unhealthy over­achiev­ing. A false self emerges in kids who are depen­dent on oth­ers’ approval (espe­cial­ly on social media) rather than engaged in self-reflec­tion to under­stand who they real­ly are and want to be. Many kids are suf­fer­ing from social iso­la­tion, lead­ing to few­er oppor­tu­ni­ties to cul­ti­vate crit­i­cal inter­per­son­al skills. Par­ents micro­manag­ing and pro­vid­ing exces­sive over­sight can deprive kids of the expe­ri­ence of recov­er­ing from chal­lenges or fail­ure and make them feel pow­er­less. And the shaky sense of moral­i­ty that many kids have ori­ents them toward mate­ri­al­ism, uneth­i­cal rule-bend­ing, and cheating.

How can par­ents help their chil­dren over­come these chal­lenges and cul­ti­vate resilience and love of learn­ing? Levine sug­gests nur­tur­ing pro­fi­cien­cies and skills like dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy, data analy­sis, crit­i­cal think­ing, curios­i­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty, flex­i­bil­i­ty, edu­cat­ed risk-tak­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion, per­se­ver­ance, and self-regulation.

Of all the qual­i­ties par­ents can cul­ti­vate in their chil­dren, hope and opti­mism are the most pre­cious,” says Levine. “We can nur­ture hope and opti­mism in our kids by demon­strat­ing that we always have some con­trol over our envi­ron­ment and our­selves. The future isn’t a tide that’s going to crush us, it’s a wave we’re a part of.”

Maryam Abdul­lah, Ph.D., is the Par­ent­ing Pro­gram Direc­tor of the Greater Good Sci­ence Cen­ter. Jill Sut­tie, Psy.D., is Greater Good’s for­mer book review edi­tor and now serves as a staff writer and con­tribut­ing edi­tor for the mag­a­zine. Diana Divecha, Ph.D., is a devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist, an assis­tant clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor at the Yale Child Study Cen­ter and Yale Cen­ter for Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence, and on the advi­so­ry board of the Greater Good Sci­ence Cen­ter. Based at UC-Berke­ley, Greater Good high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Copy­right Greater Good.

About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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