Synopses & Reviews
In this groundbreaking exploration of the brain mechanisms behind healthy caregiving, attachment specialist Daniel A. Hughes and veteran clinical psychologist Jonathan Baylin guide readers through the intricate web of neuronal processes, hormones, and chemicals that drive--and sometimes thwart--our caregiving impulses, uncovering the mysteries of the parental brain. The biggest challenge to parents, Hughes and Baylin explain, is learning how to regulate emotions that arise--feeling them deeply and honestly while staying grounded and aware enough to preserve the parent-child relationship. Stress, which can lead to "blocked" or dysfunctional care, can impede our brain's inherent caregiving processes and negatively impact our ability to do this. While the parent-child relationship can generate deep empathy and the intense motivation to care for our children, it can also trigger self-defensive feelings rooted in our early attachment relationships, and give rise to "unparental" impulses. Learning to be a "good parent" is contingent upon learning how to manage this stress, understand its brain-based cues, and respond in a way that will set the brain back on track. To this end, Hughes and Baylin define five major "systems" of caregiving as they're linked to the brain, explaining how they operate when parenting is strong and what happens when good parenting is compromised or "blocked." With this awareness, we learn how to approach kids with renewed playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy, re-regulate our caregiving systems, foster deeper social engagement, and facilitate our children's development. Infused with clinical insight, illuminating case examples, and helpful illustrations, brings the science of caregiving to light for the first time. Far from just managing our children's behavior, we can develop our "parenting brains," and with a better understanding of the neurobiological roots of our feelings and our own attachment histories, we can transform a fraught parent-child relationship into an open, regulated, and loving one.
Review
"Hughes and Baylin offer an exciting, concrete, and practical new model for examining how parents behave. Their approach offers a straightforward way to maximize parenting effectiveness. This book will help you wire your parenting brain so you can not only take good care of your kids, but also enjoy them!" Thomas W. Phelan, PhD, author of 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12
Review
"Our authors serve as empathic and wise guides through the intricacies of both detailed brain circuits and helpful parenting strategies. We, the fortunate readers, are taken on a powerful journey that illuminates ways of improving our efficacy as parents and enhancing our pleasure in the experience itself." From the Foreword by Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of Parenting from the Inside Out and The Whole-Brain Child
Review
"Writing with warmth and sensitivity, Hughes and Baylin traverse the great divide between neuroscience and practice, helping both clinicians and parents understand the brain mechanisms that may disrupt and block them from loving and supporting their children. Not only does the book promote better parenting, but it provides insights into the relationship between the therapist and parent." Stephen Porges, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Brain-Body Center, University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of The Polyvagal Theory
Review
" is one in a W. W. Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology, launched by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. Neuroscience and cognitive psychology are among the most exciting new fields about the brain and behavior in a long time. This book does sound justice to these subjects and to the evolving way that science can (and must) inform and assist everyday human endeavors, including, in this case, parenting." The Huffington Post
Review
"The authors . . . offer salient real-world vignettes that will resonate with parents and clinicians alike. . . . [H]ighly recommended reading for anyone hoping to get a taste of the exciting new field of interpersonal biology and enrich their knowledge of parenting." Journal of Psychiatric Practice
Synopsis
By understanding what's going on in parents' brains--when their caregiving skills are strong and when they're "blocked" or impaired--clinicians can more effectively help parents who are struggling to connect with their children. Daniel A. Hughes and Jonathan Baylin do just that, paving the way for a more attuned caregiving rapport.
Synopsis
The biggest challenge to parents, Hughes and Baylin explain, is learning how to regulate emotions that arise feeling them deeply and honestly while staying grounded and aware enough to preserve the parent child relationship. Stress, which can lead to blocked or dysfunctional care, can impede our brain s inherent caregiving processes and negatively impact our ability to do this. While the parent child relationship can generate deep empathy and the intense motivation to care for our children, it can also trigger self-defensive feelings rooted in our early attachment relationships, and give rise to unparental impulses Learning to be a good parent is contingent upon learning how to manage this stress, understand its brain-based cues, and respond in a way that will set the brain back on track. To this end, Hughes and Baylin define five major systems of caregiving as they re linked to the brain, explaining how they operate when parenting is strong and what happens when good parenting is compromised or blocked. With this awareness, we learn how to approach kids with renewed playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy, re-regulate our caregiving systems, foster deeper social engagement, and facilitate our children s development Infused with clinical insight, illuminating case examples, and helpful illustrations, Brain-Based Parenting brings the science of caregiving to light for the first time. Far from just managing our children s behavior, we can develop our parenting brains, and with a better understanding of the neurobiological roots of our feelings and our own attachment histories, we can transform a fraught parent-child relationship into an open, regulated, and loving one. "
Synopsis
An attachment specialist and a clinical psychologist with neurobiology expertise team up to explore the brain science behind parenting.
Synopsis
Parenting is a brain thing. Books and resources abound that teach us how to be more patient, compassionate, and effective caregivers, but at the heart of it, parenting is a state of mind. In order to better understand the parent-child rapport and strengthen the bonds of attachment with our kids, we must understand what's going on inside our brains.
In this groundbreaking book, renowned attachment specialist Daniel Hughes and clinical psychologist Jonathan Baylin team up to examine parenting dynamics as never before. By exploring the inner-workings of the parental brain, they reveal what happens neurochemically when caregiving skills are strong--leading to healthy attachment--and when they're impaired, or "blocked," potentially leading to a host of behavioral and emotional problems in kids. In doing so, they provide parents--and the family therapists and clinicians who may work with them--a roadmap for a more in-depth, meaningful, and stronger parent-child connection.
Even the most caring parents can sometimes lose their cool or succumb to caregiver fatigue. What does this mean in brain terms? As Hughes and Baylin show, it means we "go limbic," or react from the deep emotional core of our brains, while our normally robust self-regulating capacities are briefly out of commission. When parents get stuck in these defensive states, nurturing and timely repair of misattunement with their children suffer.
Walking readers through the core brain systems involved in caregiving and the various types of blocked care that can occur (chronic, acute, child-specific, and age-specific), readers learn how to harness their brain chemistry to master emotional regulation, strengthen reflective capacities, expand attunement, and remain mindful. A truly one-of-a-kind look at how, by drawing on an understanding of intersubjectivity, somatic processing, and the mind-body connection, we can achieve a closer, more attuned connection with our children.
About the Author
Daniel A. Hughes, PhD, is a prominent attachment specialist and private practitioner. President of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Institute, he consults and gives trainings in the U.S. and abroad on issues of attachment and family therapy. He is the author of Attachment-Focused Family Therapy, Attachment-Focused Family Therapy Workbook, and Attachment-Focused Parenting.Jonathan Baylin, PhD, a psychologist in private practice, offers workshops for therapists on integrating knowledge about the brain with psychotherapy.Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is an internationally acclaimed author and award-winning educator and is currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he is a co-investigator at the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and is co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center. His books include Healing Trauma, The Healing Power of Emotion, The Mindful Brain, The Mindful Therapist, Trauma and the Body, Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology, and more. He lives in Santa Monica, California.