Book review: Mindful Discipline (2014) Sneek Peak!

 

Book review: Mindful Discipline (2014) 

The authors open the book with describing children as seeds, undeveloped, but one day may grow into spectacular plants. Parents are seen as gardeners, and while there is little we can do to make the plant grow faster, we can provide these little plants with nourishment, we can help to prune the plants.

Parents and clients often ask me the key to my calmness, even when things are out of control. It's practice and experience. And tonnes of practice in mindfulness.

My psychological perspective

While CBT and Triple P may be Gold Star treatments in their own rights, today's technology and research has been largely pushing third wave therapies. Mindfulness based CBT, mindfulness based parenting to name a few. And these new approaches have great application in clients who connect with this framework, while for other clients, it will be a big turn off. 

The book is loosely based on a wealth of knowledge about attachment, mindfulness, parent training and child development. My previous training through Parents Under Pressure was reflected well in this self-help book for parents. Mindfulness is something that is mostly taught with experience. But this book does this quite well on paper! Nothing new is under the sun. But different ways of presenting and packaging information connects to different people.

I love the detail of the formal mindfulness practices at the end of each chapter. I think parents will get most out of this book if they are reading it alongside others, and able to share their learning and practices together.

My Christian perspective

I sometimes struggle with the mindfulness approach which was originally inspired by buddist zen. But I have seen it work again and again with my clients. If we removed the stigma associated with it's origins, and simply as a technique to build psychological flexibility, I believe it contradicts my beliefs less. I explain to clients that it's about building psychological flexibility about focusing on the past, and the future, and on the present. 

The book

My overall rating: 

Excellent
This is a very useful resource or a decent use of time.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but will be a winner for some struggling parents. The book is a bit wordy, but if you can bare with the slow pace, I'm sure you will get something out of it! Take the journey, I'm hopeful that the process will be rewarding for most parents who connect with the ideas. 

Mindful discipline will be available from 1 June 2014 from leading retailers including Amazon.

I was provided with a review copy ahead of publication.