Recommendations

A list of books, instagram accounts, podcasts that give solid advice on how to work with children. My focus is on helping you sort through your own emotions so that you can do your version of what these folks recommend! If you find the advice hard to implement or aspirational, I get it! Use this list to find inspiration and hold it lightly. With the right support, you’ll be able to be live your authentic, respectful caregiving approach.

Podcasts

The Wild and Wise

“Ashley is Somatic Movement Therapist and ceremonialist dedicated to tending children, body, land, and spirit. Mallika is a licensed marriage and family therapist committed to creating containers that weave together spiritual and relational healing. In this show, you will learn pathways to healing so that you can awaken the wild and wise parts of yourself and grow your capacity to live a connected, sovereign, and creative life, in right relationship with all beings.”

Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled

“Each episode of Unruffled addresses a reader's parenting issue through the lens of Janet's respectful parenting philosophy, consistently offering a perspective shift that ultimately frees parents of the need for scripts, strategies, tricks, and tactics.”

We Can Do Hart Things with Glennon Doyle

“Life is freaking hard. We are all doing hard things every day – we love and lose; we forge and end friendships; battle addiction, illness, and loneliness; care for children and parents; struggle in our jobs, our marriages, our divorces; we try to set and hold boundaries. On this show, my wife Abby Wambach, my sister Amanda Doyle, and I do the only thing that has ever made life easier: We talk honestly about the hard. We laugh and cry and help each other carry the hard so we can all live a little bit lighter and braver, free-er, less alone.”

Books

Unconditional Parenting: moving from rewards and punishments to love and reason

by Alfie Kohn

“One basic need all children have, Kohn argues, is to be loved unconditionally, to know that they will be accepted even if they screw up or fall short. Yet conventional approaches to parenting such as punishments (including “time-outs”), rewards (including positive reinforcement), and other forms of control teach children that they are loved only when they please us or impress us. Kohn cites a body of powerful, and largely unknown, research detailing the damage caused by leading children to believe they must earn our approval. That’s precisely the message children derive from common discipline techniques, even though it’s not the message most parents intend to send.”

Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child's Natural Abilities

by Magda Gerber and Allison Johnson

“Your baby is unique and will grow in confidence if allowed to develop at his or her own pace. The key to successful parenting is learning to observe your child and to trust him or her to be an initiator, an explorer, a self-learner with an individual style of problem solving and mastery.”

Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism

by Barry M. Prizant

“In Uniquely Human, Dr. Barry M. Prizant suggests a major shift in understanding autism: Instead of classifying "autistic" behaviors as signs of pathology, he sees them as strategies to cope with a world that feels chaotic and overwhelming. Rather than curb these behaviors, it's better to enhance abilities, build on strengths, and offer supports that will naturally lead to more desirable behavior and a better quality of life. In fact, argues Dr. Prizant, attempts to eliminate autistic behaviors may actually interfere with important developmental processes.”

Included here because this is a framework and way of understanding that could benefit all children.

When the Body Says No

by Gabor Maté

“Can a person literally die of loneliness? Is there a connection between the ability to express emotions and Alzheimer’s disease? Is there such a thing as a “cancer personality”? Drawing on scientific research and the author’s decades of experience as a practicing physician, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress provides answers to these and other important questions about the effect of the mind-body link on illness and health and the role that stress and one’s individual emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases.”

If there are any particular resources you are looking for that weren’t on this list, let me know! I’d be happy to offer specific recommendations.

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