From useful advice to humorous anecdotes, these parenting books are perfect for new and seasoned parents alike.
There’s No Manual: Honest and Gory Wisdom About Having a Baby by Beth Newell and Jackie Ann Ruiz
The info-packed, truth-telling guide expectant and new mothers have been screaming into their pillows for.
So you’re making a person . . . and no one will stop telling you what to do about it. Your friends, your neighbors, your Uber driver—everyone is giving you unsolicited advice, to which Beth and Jackie say: F*ck advice! There’s no “right” way to be pregnant or a new mom, only stretchy pants to be worn and choices to be made.
This illustrated guide asks and answers all the essential questions that pop up from the first trimester to the fourth, such as: Should I have an unmedicated or drugged-out birth? (Up to you!) Will I have time to pee as a new mom? (Maybe!) How do I avoid hating my partner? (That’s a little more complicated.)
Click to Read an Excerpt.
Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.
Decoding Boys: New Science Behind the Subtle Art of Raising Sons by Cara Natterson, M.D.
When boys enter puberty, they tend to get quiet—or at least quieter than before—and parents often misread their signals. Here’s how to navigate their retreat and steer them through this confusing passage, by the bestselling author of The Care and Keeping of You series and Guy Stuff: The Body Book for Boys.
As pediatrician and mother of two teenagers Cara Natterson explains, puberty starts in boys long before any visible signs appear, and that causes confusion about their changing temperaments for boys and parents alike. Often, they also grow quieter as they grow taller, which leads to less parent-child communication. But, as Natterson warns in Decoding Boys, we respect their increasing “need” for privacy, monosyllabic conversations, and alone time at their peril. Explaining how modern culture mixes badly with male adolescent biology, Natterson offers science, strategies, scripts, and tips for getting it right.
A powerful and validating lifeline, a book that will help today’s parents keep their sons safe, healthy, and resilient, as well as ensure they will become emotionally secure young men.
Click to Read an Excerpt.
Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.
Click to Watch Cara Natterson’s TED Talk.
Overcoming Dyslexia: Second Edition, Completely Revised and Updated by Sally Shaywitz, M.D., and Jonathan Shaywitz, M.D.
From one of the world’s preeminent experts on reading and dyslexia, the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and practical book available on identifying, understanding, and overcoming reading problems–now revised to reflect the latest research and evidence-based approaches.
Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder on the planet, affecting about one in five individuals, regardless of age or gender. Now a world-renowned expert gives us a substantially updated and augmented edition of her classic work: drawing on an additional fifteen years of cutting-edge research, offering new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and providing the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need. This new edition also offers new material on the challenges faced by dyslexic individuals across all ages, evidence-based universal screening for dyslexia as early as kindergarten and first grade—why and how, exercises to help children strengthen the brain areas that control reading, and more.
Click to Read an Excerpt.
Click for a Q&A with the Author.
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did) by Philippa Perry
Every parent wants their child to be happy and every parent wants to avoid screwing them up (the way their parents did!). But how do you do that? In this absorbing, clever, and warm book, renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry tells us what really matters and what behavior it is important to avoid—the vital dos and don’ts of parenting.
Her approach begins with parents themselves and their own psychological make-up and history—and how that in turn influences one’s parenting.
Instead of mapping out the “perfect” plan, Perry offers a big-picture look at the elements that lead to good parent-child relationships. This refreshing judgement-free book will help you to understand how your own upbringing may affect your parenting, accept that you will make mistakes and learn what you can do about them, break negative cycles and patterns, and more.
Click to Read an Excerpt.
Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.
And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School by Judith Warner
Through the stories of kids and parents in the middle school trenches, a New York Times bestselling author reveals why these years are so painful, how parents unwittingly make them worse, and what we all need to do to grow up.
With deep insight and compassion, Warner walks us through a new understanding of the role that middle school plays in all our lives. She argues that today’s helicopter parents are overly concerned with status and achievement—in some ways a residual effect of their own middle school experiences—and that this worsens the self-consciousness, self-absorption, and social “sorting” so typical of early adolescence.
Tracing a century of research on middle childhood and bringing together the voices of social scientists, psychologists, educators, and parents, Warner’s book shows how adults can be moral role models for children, making them more empathetic, caring, and resilient. She encourages us to start treating middle schoolers as the complex people they are, holding them to high standards of kindness, and helping them see one another as more than “jocks and mean girls, nerds and sluts.”
Coming in May!
Just Don’t Be an Assh*le: A Surprisingly Necessary Guide to Being a Good Guy by Kara Kinney Cartwright
This is the tough love that boys need to hear today: a candid and whipsmart guide to being a good guy in a world full of assh*les.
Despite their parents’ best efforts, there are times when boys on the cusp of adulthood seem like they were raised by wolves. Or the internet. This anti-assh*le manifesto aims to provide young men with a framework for how to treat others—and themselves—with respect and dignity.
As it turns out, all guys need to learn one major lesson to safely avoid assh*le territory: Other people are also humans. (Whoa, right?) In this guide, Kara Kinney Cartwright, a mom who has raised two teenage boys, compiles all the unwritten rules of being a good guy–things she wanted to make sure she said to her own sons before they left home. Just Don’t Be an Assh*le contains everything young men need to know to have positive interactions, make the best decisions, and recognize when they’re being jerks, with clear instruction on how to do better. Some of the wisdom Cartwright covers includes: Don’t be an assh*le to your family (parents are not your employees); don’t be one at work (no one wants to hear your podcast idea); to women (“Are you up?” doesn’t qualify as romance); or out in the world (people unlike you are also people). And finally, don’t be an assh*le to yourself (it’s okay not to have all the answers).
Parents Under the Influence: Words of Wisdom from a Former Bad Mother by Cécile David-Weill
Part American and part French, part memoir and part guide, this book offers a fresh, unique, and powerful perspective on the challenges of parenting and how to find a rewarding path forward for parents and children alike.
How should we raise our children? It should be a simple enough question to answer but in fact it is an intimidating and complex one. We often address it by deciding to do either exactly what our parents did or just the opposite. After that we rely on a cocktail of love and instinct, hoping it will be enough to overcome the difficulties ahead.
Far from having perfect free will, however, we are all under the influence. The child still within us confuses, influences, or undermines all our aspirations as parents and prevents us from sticking to the philosophy we initially hoped to follow. These unresolved emotions drive us to reproduce the upbringing we received, including the behaviors that have hurt us the most.
In Parents Under the Influence, Cécile David-Weill draws on her own parenting blunders and successes as well as concrete examples, case studies, and works of fiction to guide readers, helping them heal from the past and become effective, nurturing parents.
Click to Read an Excerpt.
Mama Rising by Amy Taylor-Kabbaz
Are you struggling to figure out who you are now that you’re a mama? Do you feel like you’re coming last in your own life? Do you feel guilty for not loving every moment of this motherhood gig? Mama Rising includes interviews with experts, case studies and Amy’s own tried-and-tested advice on how to reconnect with the woman you are underneath all that washing, cleaning and caring.
As someone who used to put themselves last—doing everything she thought was ‘right’ for her children and family, but not really listening to what her body and her spirit was begging for—Amy understands first-hand the overwhelm and complex range of emotions that mothers face.
Amy’s background as a journalist set her on the path to uncover all that she could about the latest research on matrescence, the transition a woman undergoes when she becomes a mother. She now shares what she’s learned in the hope that it will help you navigate this stage of your life.
Coming in May!
Love Poems for People with Children by John Kenney
In the spirit of his wildly popular New Yorker pieces and the New York Times bestseller Love Poems for Married People, Thurber-prize winner John Kenney presents a hilarious new collection of poetry for people with children.
With the same brilliant wit and hilarious realism that made Love Poems for Married People such a hit, John Kenney is back with a brand new collection of poems, this time taking on the greatest “joy” in life: children. Kenney covers it all, from newborns, toddlers, and sleep deprivation, to the terrible twos, terrible tweens, and terrible teens. A parent’s love is unconditional, but sometimes that button can’t help but be pushed. Between back to school shopping, summer vacations that never end, the awkwardness of puberty, the inevitable post-college moving back in, and more, a parent’s job is never done, whether they like it or not.
Click to Read an Excerpt.
Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.
Parenting Tip:
Listen to audiobooks for hands-free reading while on the go, or while juggling parental tasks.
Click for a List of Even More Parenting Advice Listens on Audio.
The Magic of Meditation: Stories and Practices to Develop Gratitude and Empathy with Your Child by Marie Champeaux-Cunin and Dominique Butet; Read by Cassandra Campbell
A simple but complete mindfulness meditation program for children as young as three years old and their parents, designed to encourage kindness and empathy.
This mindfulness meditation primer is really two books in one. The first is a guide for parents to the basics and benefits of meditation for children in terms of health, managing emotions, and promoting success in school. The second is a concise practice program for children, featuring Yupsi, the magical dragon. The tales of Yupsi, which are infused with a sense of adventure as well as compassion and empathy, provide a fun and engaging entree to the practice.
Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.
