Raising kids is never easy. Whether it’s soothing a baby, taming a tantrum, dealing with pushback from your teen, or navigating different values than your adult child, parenting sparks myriad emotions. It’s a never- ending roller coaster.
We get jolted with anxiety, sideswiped by sadness, uprooted by anger, and paralyzed by fear. Even joy-filled and prideful moments can feel uncomfortable, especially if we were never taught to embrace these emotions and allow ourselves to feel big.
At other times, we get saddled with guilt, especially when our own needs collide with our child’s. Embarrassment is also par for the course, particularly when our children mortify us. Sometimes we simply feel confused and overwhelmed. No one is immune to these emotional experiences. Kids have big feelings, and we have them too.
This book teaches you how to identify, name, validate, and work through your emotions. It’s a skill set that nourishes lifelong well- being and robust mental health for you and your children.
Being able to work with our emotions is something we all need, but most of us have never been taught these skills in school or by society. This skill set will help you become the type of parent you want to be.
Emotions can feel scary and overwhelming, especially if your parents swept emotions under the rug or never modeled how to work with them. In fact, many of us were taught that we can outsmart our emotions, even though our biology proves otherwise. For this reason, “hacks” like trying to avoid or deny emotions never truly work.
Unlike other parenting books that offer “tips and tricks” for handling meltdowns, motivating middle schoolers, or disciplining teens, our book teaches you how to handle the emotions that stressful moments bring.
We will give you what we call guiding lights: two simple tools to help you navigate parenting. The first guiding light is a map to your emotions called the Change Triangle, a tool for emotional health in parenting. This tool applies to all parents, even if you think of yourself as that feeling- phobic person who bristles away from touchy- feely topics.
Just as we learn in high school about the organs in the body and their purpose for our survival, learning about emotions is crucial too. After all, emotions affect us almost every minute of every day in one way or another.
The second guiding light is what we refer to as the Four Capacities (the 4 Cs): calm, connection, curiosity, and compassion. The Four Capacities help you take command of emotions and allow you to parent from a place of calm instead of chaos, connection instead of disconnection, curiosity instead of control, and compassion instead of judgment. Embodying these capacities lets you know
that you are in the “open- hearted state,” a harmonious state where you can make decisions that serve you and your children well.
These tools have been game- changing for us as parents and psychotherapists, and we are excited to share them with you. Thank you for joining us. We will be with you every step of the way.
To read or listen to the sections of the book that speak to you, visit here.
