Become a Self-Aware Parent & Bond with your Child: Book Review

Resolving Conflict and Building a Better Bond with Your Child. When I read this tag line for The Self-Aware Parent, I had to look into it. Who doesn’t want to create a better bond with their child? Who doesn’t want to resolve conflict? With a 4 year old and a 6 year old, I know that the days of my kids being my little love bugs will be short lived, they are individuals that are growing up. They have a mind of their own. I want to be sure that as parents, we are giving them the best shot in life as an individual person, not a copy-cat of me.

The Self Aware Parent Book Review

The Self Aware Parent talks about how your childhood and how you were raised and your (& spouse) personality impacts how your child will be raised. In the first chapter, you will learn how to recognize how similar you are to your parents’ parenting styles. As kids, we all say we will never do such-and-such the way our parents did. As parents, are you? This book helps you to consciously evaluate your feelings, reactions, and thinking process and how it all pertains to your child’s feelings. By being “self aware” as a parent, you have the tools to nurture your child into happy, emotionally healthy kid with a good self esteem. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids?

The second chapter is all about separating your child from you, not just physically letting go at different stages but emotionally too. There was an excellent example of how a mom could not separate her feelings from  your child’s feelings. When her daughter didn’t get invited to a birthday party at school, she made a big stink. Even though the class mate only invited a handful of kids, she expressed extreme disappointment and sadness about this in front of her daughter. Her daughter was not close to the classmate and did not care that she was not invited – UNTIL her mom projected her feelings onto her. Now, the daughter was upset too. What good did the mom do? None. Had she been self aware of what she was doing, she could have restrained herself from making her daughter feel pretty lousy that she was not invited.

The third chapter is just what I needed and I suspect many other moms especially. It is all about managing parental worries and concerns. At my small group Bible Study meeting tonight, we talked about stress. Out of all the factors we can be stressed about, all of the moms agreed that much of our stress comes from parenting, specifically from worrying about our kids. This chapter invites you to evaluate if there is a legitimate reason for you to worry, if you are projecting your fears and worries onto your child, how to calm and settle yourself, and how to stop worrying in slow increments.

I could go on and on about how The Self Aware Parent is caulk full of great advice, insightful hints, and encouraging words but instead, I am going to encourage you to buy this book. Other topics in this book includes:

• The Helicopter Parent: Dealing with Your Parental Doubt
• The Spaghetti Parent: Learning the Value of Saying No
• Controlling Negativity in Your Communication
• Managing Your Temper—-Raising Awareness to Angry Feelings so Your Temper Doesn’t Creep Up on You
• It’s About Your Child, Not You
• The Importance of Bonding Solidly With Your Child
• When One Parent Travels

Buy The Self Aware Parent Book

You can buy The Self Aware Parent on the Palgrave Macmillan website for $17 or on Amazon.com.

Win The Self Aware Parent Book (3 Giveaways) (Closed)

Updated: 4/5/11 Winners Announced:Congratulations,Elena, Bitt, and Susan Smoaks!

Palgrave Macmillan is offering 3 winners their own The Self Aware Parent book.

To Enter:

You must “Like” AkronOhioMoms on Facebook OR Follow AkronOhioMoms on Twitter and comment below on your screen name.

Increase your Chances with Optional Extra Entries

Once you Enter, you may enter additional times by leaving extra comments for any or all options listed below- Do include offsite links or names to verify the entry if necessary- Note that some methods allow you to enter multiple times for single actions!

Performing this Action	Lets you add _ more Entries
“Like” AkronOhioMoms.com on Facebook (posting a comment is appreciated but not required)	1
Join us with Google Friend Connect	2
Follow AkronOhioMoms.com on twitter	1
Submit this contest to ANY online giveaway Linkys or contest/sweeps sites! Unlimited extra entries!	5
Tweet about this giveaway. Tweet daily for an extra entry every day! You may copy and paste: I just entered to #Win  The Self Aware Parent Book @AkronOhioMoms.com #contests #sweepstakes Ends 4/2  https://www.akronohiomoms.com/?p=9935	1
Comment on any House Remodel posts (limit 5)	3
Blog about this giveaway on your website	5
Stumble any non-giveaway blog post (limit 10)	1
Leave one comment on any other giveaway	1

30 Day winning rule does not apply to this contest. For complete contest rules, please see our Contest Statement and Blog Disclosure.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on April 2, 2011 when a winner will be drawn at random and announced the next day. When commenting, please include your email address (not visible to public). I will notify the winners and they will have 36 hours to respond!

This was not a paid post. My own opinions were used based on my perceptions and experience. Thank you to Palgrave Macmillan who provided the products for review & giveaway.

See larger image The Self-Aware Parent: Resolving Conflict and Building a Better Bond with Your Child (Paperback) New From: $15.04 In Stock

Cindy

Founder and Lead Blogger at Akron Ohio Moms

Cindy is the top Akron Blogger with her own take on awesome brands for families, where to vacation for families, a beat on local activities and family fun, a knack for getting moms to share , and a house that is always 2 weeks away from a complete remodel!