The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired (2020) by Daniel J Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D
By reviewing the tenets of Attachment Theory and other neurobiological factors, this book helps to outline the connections between generational approaches to parenting by helping parents (mentors, teachers, coaches, aunts/uncles, etc.) to examine how their childhood relationships with their parents are now impacting/influencing their own parenting styles, as well as encouraging parents to identify how these relationships led to insecure attachments, and how they can do things differently with their own children to better foster a more secure attachment. Via the 4 S’s (helping children feel Seen, Safe, Soothed, and Secure), parents are provided guidelines of how to appropriately attune to their child’s unique needs in order to support a secure attachment for their child.
One of the underlying themes in this book is that there is no such thing as a perfect parent, and the goal of good parenting is not to achieve such an ideal, but rather to model what it means to be a human being who can make mistakes. Through experiences related to rupture and repair, parents are able to model an important value to children that it is okay to make mistakes, as well as modeling the skills to come back from them.
How did I hear about this book? I read this for one of my dance/movement therapy certification classes
Would I recommend this to my colleagues? Absolutely
Would I recommend this to my clients? I do and I have. I also purchase this book for new parents any time I am invited to a baby shower. This book is not overly clinical and is written for the general public as the audience.
How do I apply this content to my work: I do not specialize in working with children, but childhood/developmental trauma is a core component in the work I do in supporting the healing from trauma with adults. My role as a therapist can also be to model a healthy relationship with a secure attachment and the 4 S’s contribute to the development of rapport and sense of safety required to move through the process of healing from trauma. Furthermore, as I support my adult clients to gain more insight about how their childhood relationships shaped their life, the information in this book helps to support valuable discussions about how their current parenting styles may be recreating some of those patterns they are healing from, as well as offer guidelines for how to make changes in their own parenting styles as they grow into a more healed version of themselves.
