Parenting isn’t easy. Showing up is. Your greatest impact begins right where you are. Now the bestselling authors of The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline explain what this means over the course of childhood.“There is parenting magic in this book.”—Michael Thompson, Ph.D., co-author of the New York Times bestselling classic Raising Cain One of the very best scientific predictors for how … Cain
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.
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Parenting at this moment in time and at today’s pace feels hard. But that makes it all that much more important that we try to simplify the process of parenting and not put quite so much pressure on our own parenting shoulders. The Power of Showing Up will help you do just that. Siegel and Payne Bryson are master teachers when it comes to helping parents react and respond to kids in ways that communicate ‘I hear you.’ They articulate and quantify how to make your parenting easier — and better!
Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson have written their best book yet — and that is saying a lot. They have distilled their parenting wisdom — based on neuroscience research and a deep empathy for children’s needs — into a profound concept: showing up. It is one of those great ideas that seems so obvious — but only after someone has shown it to you and spelled it out clearly. Best of all, Siegel and Payne Bryson ‘show up’ for the reader of this book. They know parents, know their fears and anxieties, hopes and dreams, and they provide an accessible path to seeing and soothing children and providing them with safety and security.
Rarely does a book so broad and deep of subject give you the small doable steps to find your way to success, confidence, and connection with your children. The Power of Showing Up brings to life the Zulu greeting ‘Sawubona’ (I see you) and the refrain ‘Ngikhona’ (I am here), which are essential for the parent-child connection.
Drs. Siegel and Payne Bryson teach us how a parent can make a child feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure, even if he or she didn’t have that in their own childhoods.
We all want to become better parents for our children and yet our children did not come with a HOW TO or a book of instructions. Fear not, because this book lays it out in a very clear, no fluff, and easy to read book outlining in an easy to remember guide full of examples and scenarios.
It is no surprise the success of our children is dependent on how present we are for them and will actually serve as a predictor for their success in life as far as their personal and academic success, the development of their leadership skills and their future relationships with others. Being present does not have to cost a lot of time, money or energy, but to showing up and being there in the moment, and the quality of your presence makes all the difference.
The information Siegel and Bryson present in this book are backed up by science and well-grounded and proven research. I fell that the information in the book is something that I can trust as far as the validity of the information they are presenting.
I enjoy the highlights and pictures in the book to emphasize the topics that are being presented and reinforces the material covered. I also enjoy the real life scenarios and examples on how to handle situations you may encounter from a bad example to the best way to handle certain situations. The writing is easy to understand and the information presented is enjoyable and makes for an easy read.
I loved this book and will be using it as a resource. This is a must read for would be and current parents and grandparents as well as educators. I highly recommend this book and would make great gifts for parents.