If you want to avoid making the same mistakes your parents made, if you know there is a better way of parenting than the one you have been exposed to, if you want to be a better parent. or if you want to parent with compassion and understanding.

Really good info for parents concerned with giving their kids the best of their parenting abilities. Kind of a technical read in some spots. Very interesting.

This book helped me gain enormous insight into myself and also create a compassionate space in which to parent. It is not an easy read, but it is important and well worth the effort. I've read some beautiful parenting books, but what many of them lack is what this book presents so beautifully. Until you can understand yourself better, all of the good intentions in the world will just crash down, leaving you feeling like a failure. I am so grateful that this book found me.

Parenting from the Inside Out is an easy-to-read book on the neurobiology of parenting. It builds upon the attachment theory of child development and contains useful exercises that are aimed at helping readers identify and work with psychological issues related to parenting.

The core theme of this book is that when parents cultivate a strong, healthy relationship with their children, it promotes development in areas of the brain enabling emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal skills. Experiences and memory shape emerging neural connections; essentially parents sculpt the minds of their children.

Unresolved issues from childhood may reduce the quality of the parent child relationship. Through deepening self-awareness and processing past issues in order to give meaning to them, parents can change ingrained patterns and help their children thrive. Parents can grow together with their children, enjoying them for who they are. Children in turn can become grounded in reality and more self-assured. Specific psychological concepts are introduced and clearly explained.

Siegel's openness in regard to his experience as a parent is courageous and serves to normalize the inevitable fact that parents are imperfect. Parental ambivalence is approached with sensitivity and guidance is provided regarding how to identify and heal negative patterns.

I highly recommend this book for parents who wish to deepen their relationships with their children and enhance the quality of their lives together. This book is also very useful for anyone working with children.

I came across this book because I am scared of being a parent. I am not a parent and one of the reasons is because I am afraid I would be like my Dad. I don't want to be like that and what's more is that I have ADD and my parents did not know. I was just accepted as lazy and maybe dumb. Reading parenting from the inside out, I believe there is hope and perhaps I can be different, no, I know I can be different, but I don't know if it is too late. I am already near my forties and my wife is slightly older than me. However, if anyone is stumped by their past and how he or she was raised, then this book will offer an insight which can get you thinking differently and put some of your worries to rest.

One Boy's Struggle: A Memoir: Surviving Life with Undiagnosed ADD

Parenting From the Inside Out, is an excellent resource!
This book was highly recommended to me, by a psychologist and family therapist. It reveals how we as parents can gain insight, into how our own childhood and past significant family relationships have an enormous impact on how we will relate to and share experiences with our children. It gives wonderful instructions for parents, on how to be emotionally "present" with our children.It also is very informational about brain/mind development.

This book ties together information from Neuropsychology, Attachment Theory, Memory/Information Processing therories... and more. All the disparate strands combine to shed light on just what happens when your child presses your buttons and you lose it big time. As a Psychologist with prior knowledge in this area, I found the book fantastic reading but I wonder if it is a little too technical for the uninitiated. Then again, you could always skip the stand-alone sections that address scientific findings as the rest of the text is easier reading. I will certainly make good use of it in my client and teaching work.

This book was in good shape and was delivered in a good time.

I found this book very interesting and supportive of a sensitive style of parenting. The central idea of looking back to your own childhood, thinking about how you feel about it and understanding how it can shape your behaviour, is both interesting and illuminating. The assertion that a negative experience need not create a pattern that is repeated in the next generation is very positive and encouraging. I found the explanations of how brain development is linked to emotional well-being fascinating and also very encouraging of investing in building and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. I have a couple of minor reservations about the book: that is is probably most useful for people who have experienced trauma as a child and have issues to work through and that that the scientific sections are a little dry and repetitive. I thought the case stories were interesting but that more in the way of tips - perhaps in a table or summary at the end of each chapter, would have been useful. Still, overall a thoughtful and thought-provoking book which could just reassure you that all your parenting efforts are worthwhile and may even provoke deep personal healing (although I'm not sure this book could replace professional help).

Useful information for well-educated parents who like to read and do self-inquiry. Helpful for mental health professionals who support clients in conscious parenting. Also indirectly useful for those who want to do self-work regarding family of origin and early life developmental issues to improve adult interpersonal relations. For optimal integration many of the exercises seem best done with the guidance and reflection of a psychotherapist.

Useful information for well-educated parents who like to read and do self-inquiry. Helpful for mental health professionals who support clients in conscious parenting. Also indirectly useful for those who want to do self-work regarding family of origin and early life developmental issues to improve adult interpersonal relations. For optimal integration many of the exercises seem best done with the guidance and reflection of a psychotherapist.

There are a couple of useful chapters in here, well written, etc., but most seemed old news. I've yet to read Developing Mind, and I'm hoping that that will be much better and more original. Siegel is a great lecturer, so I was expecting more. Basically, this book is about being aware of the traumatic, disconnecting experiences one has had in order to stop the cycle of anger, reactivity, etc., that comes from unconscious conflict.

There are a couple of useful chapters in here, well written, etc., but most seemed old news. I've yet to read Developing Mind, and I'm hoping that that will be much better and more original. Siegel is a great lecturer, so I was expecting more. Basically, this book is about being aware of the traumatic, disconnecting experiences one has had in order to stop the cycle of anger, reactivity, etc., that comes from unconscious conflict.

While other authors have focused their attention on the brain of the developing child (What's Going on in There by Lise Eliot, Ph.D. and The Scientist in the Crib by Alison Gopnik, PhD, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Ph.D., and Patricia K. Kuhl, Ph.D.), in their book Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help you Raise Children Who Thrive, Siegel and Hartzell zero in on what's going on inside the parent's brain -- specifically how new research in the areas of neurobiology and attachment theory can help parents to understand why they parent the way they do and what they can do to use that knowledge to become better parents.

The authors stress the importance of making peace with your past so that you can avoid repeating any negative patterns of family interaction with your own kids: "In the absence of reflection, history often repeats itself and parents are vulnerable to passing on to their children unhealthy patterns from the past. Understanding our lives can free us from the otherwise predictable situation in which we recreate the damage to our children that was done to us in our own childhoods....By making sense of our lives we can deepen a capacity for self-understanding and bring coherence to our emotional experience, our views of the world, and our interactions with our children."

The book's content is excellent, but it's pretty heavy-going at times. The authors offer the reader a mix of straight narrative, introspective journaling exercises, and lessons in neurobiology. It's all fascinating stuff, but it requires a lot of focus and attention. Definitely not to be attempted with a child in the room!

This book is full of lots of fascinating information but it's the exercises and the thinking that goes into doing them that makes this book the eye-opener it is. Don't cheat yourself out of the full experience by skipping the exercises or setting them aside to "get to later." You and your kids will both benefit from the soul-searching Siegel and Hartzell invite at the end of each chapter.

This is an excellent book for parents and foster or adoptive parents and therapists. It is a book to be read slowly and experienced. It is about emotional and brain development in people and the lifetime effects of our connections with those around us. It is also a book about healing.

This book is a must buy book for all men who had a father and all dads of children! Dr. Siegel shares stories and honest examples of the challenges of fatherhood and provides tools for how to better understand our emotional reactions and manage them. It is a must buy book for all women who have a mother or who are moms of children including toddlers to teens. I highly recommend it to all adoptive parents. It provides ways to liberate oneself from "expert" advice and become more trusting of our own intuition. This book is a step in gaining freedom from impulsively reacting when provoked in any relationship!
It's really three books in one. The general text is easy to read and full of practical tools. Mary Hartzell, who is a warm and highly respected teacher and parenting educator in Los Angeles, tells beautiful stories and sprinkles her practical wisdom through out the book. The scientific gray pages about the brain and attachment research are highly appreciated by those who are less "touchy feely". The reflective questions provide an opportunity for self-growth. This books gives guidelines for living more joyfully, improving your health, and creating deeper connections in all of your relationships with the brain in mind. I loved it!

This book has many honest, pure, good ideas about parenting, and each is thoroughly researched and supported.

However, not a single idea seemed fresh, and none changed the way I parented. This may be because the book was laborious to read. I found myself far too often bored. And I really wanted to read and enjoy this book in order to become a better parent.

I guess I am a good enough parent already.

Siegel and Hartzell provide valuable information for parents regarding the emotional development of children. Perhaps more valuable, though, is how parents can use the information to understand their own patterns of emotion. Information is accessible to a lay audience and includes learning exercises. Bibliographies provide connection to professional literature.

I recommend this book to all parents of young children, to those who work with children, and to those seeking understanding of their own emotional behaviors.

This book is informative, insightful, and a must read for everyone not just parents. It will help you understand what is going on in all your relationships (especially your relationships with your children). Participate with the book: do the exercises at the end of each chapter, and you will grow and mature. I am a Marriage Family Therapist and I have all my clients read the book to enhance their therapy and enable them to progress at a faster pace.

This book provides a basis for overcoming your childhood issues and creating a better future for your child and future generations. What could be better than that? I found this book to be one of the best books I've ever read and wish they made everyone read it before having children.

Some readers may find this book "too scientific for a parenting book" but I found it utterly facinating and ate up every word.

The age old "nature vs. nurture" debate is examined and the newer concept of nurture effecting nature emerges with either positive or negative outcomes depending on the experiences of the child and the effects of their developing brain.

At times I had to take breaks from reading it to allow for integration of all the information, but the effect was that this book changed my parenting philosophy and approach, because instead of asking "what is going on in those little heads??" Now I know.

This parenting book is far more than a "how-to". It examines the importance of the parent child relationship from the perspective of the child's neurological and social development. It challenges parents to examine their own upbringing and to evaluate how their experiences as a child now influence their functioning as a parent. The premises exlpained in the book are supported by recent breakthroughs in brain research. As a psychotherapist who works with children and famlies, this is the book I recommend the most to my clients. At times the writing in the book is somewhat techinical in nature, but there are many stories and exercies for parents that are beneficial even if the reader doesn't understand all of the language.

My anticipation of our new arrival promted me to buy this book. My wife and I loved it! It will stay in our library for future pick ups. To become a partent is a scary responsibility and we wanted to be as prepared as we could from the onset. This book puts issues in a way to help you realize your kids don't have to take on your own past problems and how to avoid while preparing them for their own life. So many great ideas in it!

Collaboratively written by skilled child psychiatrist Daniel J. Sigel and parenting educator Mary Hartzell, Parenting From The Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive is a thoroughly "reader friendly" psychological guide to improving one's parenting skills through improved self-understanding and through learning from one's own childhood experiences. Presented in terms accessible to parents of all backgrounds, Parenting From The Inside Out offers gems of insight and clinical expertise and is a strongly recommended addition to personal and community library Parenting Skills reading lists and reference shelves.

It's impossible to say something can change your life without slipping into cliche-land, but this book is all about the possibility of change and the crux of life: brain, to mind, to heart, and though the book is too grounded in science to say it, to soul; it's the neurology behind the fact that mind is love; but more than anything the ideas in this book are simply fascinating and useful! I have read other work by Dan Siegel and each time I revisit his sythesis of brain science, attachment theory and a warm-hearted psychiatrist's view of Buber's I-Thou, I am filled with new thoughts and emotions.