I’ve had this book in paperback form for a couple of years now and was making only a little headway with it as I picked it up, then put it down, then picked it up again.  Then our holiday to Fiji rolled around and I really didn’t want to lug half a case of books with me, so I splurged on a digital copy as well.  It goes by the title “Calm Parent, Happy Kids” in the Kindle version.

I spent most of my reading time during the holiday working my way through this book.  It does take a bit of work because there’s lots to get to grips with.  I know most of the advice may be old hat to many folks, but if you’re new or relatively new to peaceful parenting there’s plenty to ponder over.

Dr Markham also has a great site called Aha! Parenting if you want to get snippets of advice rather than read an entire book.

However, it is a well put together and thought out book that is well worth the time and effort to read.

The sections cover regulating yourself, fostering connection and coaching, not controlling.  Within each section there are further chapters devoted to specific aspects of the bigger, overarching theme.

I enjoyed it immensely and found a lot of ideas that I could put into practice.

For me the idea of self-care was a big one and has been a theme over the past little while.  This book re-inforced for me how important getting balance in my life is.  As the quote goes, “if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”.  So a primary focus for the remainder of this year is getting some balance each and every day.  The kids now know that I’m taking ‘me time’ most days.  It’s nothing earth-shattering at the moment, simply some time out to do something nice for myself like read a couple of chapters of my latest book or indulge in a hot bath.  These are small things, but they allow some personal space in a day filled with “Mum, can we…”, “Mum, could you do…”, “Mum, look at this…”, “Mum, come and play a game…”

There’s loads more great pieces of advice that we already do or try to do.  I will, no doubt, expand on some of those over the next little while.  In the meantime I will leave you with the recommendation of finding a copy of this book if you are interested in transitioning to a peaceful parenting style, it will give you both the whys and some useful hows.  It’s a great book to add to a parenting library and I’d give it a solid 5 stars.  So good, in fact, that I have pre-purchased the digital version of her newly released book – Peaceful Parenting, Happy Siblings.
I’m now looking forward to getting my teeth into that when it’s released in June!  In the meantime you can get your hands on a paperback copy.

Happy reading!