Review for Parenting from the Inside Out

While other authors have focused their attention on the brain of the developing child, in their book Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help you Raise Children Who Thrive, Siegel and Hartzell zero in on what's going on inside the parent's brain -- specifically how new research in the areas of neurobiology and attachment theory can help parents to understand why they parent the way they do and what they can do to use that knowledge to become better parents.

The authors stress the importance of making peace with your past so that you can avoid repeating any negative patterns of family interaction with your own kids: "In the absence of reflection, history often repeats itself and parents are vulnerable to passing on to their children unhealthy patterns from the past. Understanding our lives can free us from the otherwise predictable situation in which we recreate the damage to our children that was done to us in our own childhoods....By making sense of our lives we can deepen a capacity for self-understanding and bring coherence to our emotional experience, our views of the world, and our interactions with our children."

The book's content is excellent, but it's pretty heavy-going at times. The authors offer the reader a mix of straight narrative, introspective journaling exercises, and lessons in neurobiology. It's all fascinating stuff, but it requires a lot of focus and attention. Definitely not to be attempted with a child in the room!