The Power of Showing Up | Dr. Dan Seigel & Tina Bryson | BRETT’S PICKS | Effective Parenting Tips
It’s Thursday so here is another “Brett’s Picks”. This is an amazing book for parents. The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired by Dr. Dan Seigel and Tina Bryson.
One of the very best scientific predictors for how any child turns out—in terms of happiness, academic success, leadership skills, and meaningful relationships—is whether at least one adult in their life has consistently shown up for them. In an age of scheduling demands and digital distractions, showing up for your child might sound like a tall order. But as bestselling authors Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson reassuringly explain, it doesn’t take a lot of time, energy, or money. Instead, showing up means offering a quality of presence. And it’s simple to provide once you understand the four building blocks of a child’s healthy development. Every child needs to feel what Siegel and Bryson call the Four S’s:
• Safe: We can’t always insulate a child from injury or avoid doing something that leads to hurt feelings. But when we give a child a sense of safe harbor, she will be able to take the needed risks for growth and change.
• Seen: Truly seeing a child means we pay attention to his emotions—both positive and negative—and strive to attune to what’s happening in his mind beneath his behavior.
• Soothed: Soothing isn’t about providing a life of ease; it’s about teaching your child how to cope when life gets hard, and showing him that you’ll be there with him along the way. A soothed child knows that he’ll never have to suffer alone.
• Secure: When a child knows she can count on you, time and again, to show up—when you reliably provide safety, focus on seeing her, and soothe her in times of need, she will trust in a feeling of secure attachment. And thrive!Based on the latest brain and attachment research, The Power of Showing Up shares stories, scripts, simple strategies, illustrations, and tips for honoring the Four S’s effectively in all kinds of situations—when our kids are struggling or when they are enjoying success; when we are consoling, disciplining, or arguing with them; and even when we are apologizing for the times we don’t show up for them. Demonstrating that mistakes and missteps are repairable and that it’s never too late to mend broken trust, this book is a powerful guide to cultivating your child’s healthy emotional landscape.
The Power of Showing Up
One of my favourite quotes from this book is:
Of course we all make better and worse decisions as parents, and there are all kinds of skills we can attain to help our children develop in optimal ways. But when you get right down to it, parenting is about simply being present for our kids. As we’ll soon explain, the longitudinal research on child development clearly demonstrates that one of the very best predictors for how any child turns out—in terms of happiness, social and emotional development, leadership skills, meaningful relationships, and even academic and career success—is whether they developed security from having at least one person who showed up for them.
The Power of Showing Up
Please check The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired on Amazon for the book description – https://amzn.to/3CgiRy9
For a full book list of all the books I suggest please check these links. You will find The Power of Showing up in the parenting section. You will also find there all the parenting books I suggest in my talks.
Canada – https://www.amazon.ca/shop/brettullman
United States – https://www.amazon.com/shop/brettullman
I do have my own book with its largest chapter on this topic of Parenting – Parenting: Navigating Everything. Click here. Below is the trailer for my book/talk on parenting
Affiliate link: This is an amazon affiliate link which means if you purchase the book a small commission comes back to the work I do. Thanks for your support.
