Description
Book SynopsisWhile advice abounds from a variety of sources before parents embark on their parenting journeys, the only parent preparation we actually receive comes from our family and peer stories. Yet most adults do not realize that in day-to-day challenges of guiding our children, something interesting happens. As we steer our children through life, we reopen our own childhood roads. Just when our child most needs us, we become needy ourselves: as adults and parents, we find that we have unresolved raising issues, basic needs that were not met in our childhoods. Our needs and memories echo and influence many of the parenting decisions we make, even though we're unaware of those influences at times. Fortunately, children help parents reach their needs as much as their parents help them fulfill their own. Our child ends up guiding us, by connecting us to some earlier time in our life when we encountered distress. We dredge up a lesson, and we adapt by adhering to or changing the story that we tell
Trade ReviewThis is the first book I have read that explores deeply how raising a child changes and impacts a parent. It gives parents the lens to see themselves and therefore grow, change, and be better deliberate parents. Two adjectives to describe this book: unique and needed. Two verbs: buy and read! -- JoAnn Deak, Ph. D, author of How Girls Thrive, Girls Will be Girls, Your Fantastic Elastic Brain and The Owner's Manual for Driving Your Adolescent Brain
There is no more important job for which we are given fewer directions than parenting. Drawing on her decades of work with children and families and her voluminous reading, Janis Johnston has produced a valuable and practical map for parents to learn about themselves and from their children. Sprinkled with sage quotes and bits of wisdom, the book covers all the pitfalls at each stage of parenting and offers parents the chance to enhance their flexibility and creativity through this daunting journey. -- Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., developer of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy, President of the Center for Self Leadership
With an unusually creative writing style, Janis Clark Johnston gives us a new perspective on parenting. Illustrated with a wide variety of case studies, and validated by experts, we come to understand the reciprocal impact parents and their children have on each other. When I finished reading this book, I also had a new, insightful understanding of myself. -- Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D. Professor, Drexel University and author, Thinking Parent, Thinking Child
Throughout the book, Johnston strategically placed quotations; highlighted key statements; shared stories about her clients, and included parenting tips to accomplish tasks. Mapping activities help guide parental self-reflection on important times in your life that impact raising children. . . .Each topic helps the reader reflect on why we raise out children the way we do and connect the dots between out own childhood and adulthood to become a better 'parent in training.' I came away with several key points, ideas and tactics that will help me with my own child rearing choices. * Atlanta Parent *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Author’s Note Introduction: Children Raise Parents, and Parents Raise Children Part I. What’s the Story? 1.Let’s Understand Five Basic Needs 2.Discover What a Personality Story-house Says about Us Part II. Meeting Needs, Our Child’s and Our Own 3. Energy Needs: Are You an Engineer, or Are You Enslaved to Ennui? 5.Discipline Needs: Are You a Disciple, or Are You Disorganized in Disorder? 6.Creativity Needs: Are You a Composer, or Are a Clone to Conformity? 7.Belonging Needs: Are You a Buddy, or Are You Belittled by “Belonging Blues?” 7.Ability Needs: Are You an Archer, or Are You Alienated with Apathy? Part III. Modeling Self Territory 8. You Can Map Your Personality 9. Learn to Connect the Dots in Self Territory Chapter Notes References Index
