Favourite Parenting Resources

After I published 14 Ways to Connect With Your Child, a reader asked me to share my favourite parenting books. Coincidentally, this exact post was already in the works from a recent brainstorming session. Great minds think alike, I guess!

I don’t actually read a whole ton of parenting books. I have good intentions. Sometimes I even order them only to sit for an embarrassingly long time untouched. I wish I read (a real book made out of paper) more often, but I think the internet may be a giant conspiracy to turn all of our brains to mush, which has turned my main leisure into screen-time instead.

Me and the internet. It’s a love-hate relationship. It’s also a total rabbit trail, so I’ll try to focus here (thanks a lot, internet, for wrecking my attention span. I’m like a puppy. Or a goldfish.)

So anyway… I have a few book recommendations to share, as well as my favourite websites.

A Few Books:

Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka (I wrote a post on my own spirited child after reading this book.)

Loving Our Kids on Purpose by Danny Silk (I just absolutely love this book. The first half especially was just revolutionary for me in developing my parenting philosophy in relation to my theology.)

Ames & Ilg’s Your 4-Year-Old, etc. (A fantastic series – each book is one year of life, ie 3-year-old, 4-year-old, etc – on child development from a psychological perspective. This stuff is amazingly accurate and helpful in understanding the normal stages and characteristics of each age group. Slightly dated language because it was written several decades ago, but immensely helpful nonetheless)

Websites:

(FYI: many of these sites are excellent to follow on facebook as well – lots of great articles, links, and discussions!)

Aha Parenting (This is my absolute favourite – the articles are brilliant)

Dulce de Leche (A great blog written by a mama with so much wisdom)

Peaceful Parent Institute (Called the Way of the Peaceful Parent on Facebook)

Gentle Christian Mothers (A message board with a great diversity of theological backgrounds, all with the common goal of parenting gently)

Peaceful Parenting (A more outspoken site with tons of controversial views. I happen to agree with most things on there, so I reference it here for your perusal as well. Tons of fantastic research on the tougher subjects like sleep training, spanking, circumcision, etc)

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So I think that about covers it for today… a little light reading for your Friday evening, right? (OK, confession, I honestly love spending hours reading up on this stuff… I may be weird, but I am 100% ok with that!)