Creating Connection: Essential Tools for Growing Families through Conception, Birth and Beyond

by Rebecca Thompson, Amy Rost (Editor), Susan Graham (Illustrator)

The story of your family begins long before the conception of your first child and even long before your own conception. Patterns in families, for better or worse, don’t just show up out of the blue. Instead, patterns emerge as living and breathing parts of our lives through the stories we tell to ourselves and to our children, spoken or unspoken. Even though we cannot consciously remember our early lives, the memories live on in our bodies, in cellular memory. The imprint of how we were conceived, whether we were expected or wanted, how our parents adjusted to the news, and how we came into the world, are all part of our stories. And they are part of our children’s stories. What is not “remembered” consciously has a strong influence over our relationships, for better or for worse.

When we can understand our own story or the story of our child, we can make more sense of our struggles. For parents who have never connected deeply with one child, a closer look at the child’s early story can often shed light on why. A child with behavioral challenges can be understood in a different light when we revisit the whole story, rather than trying to figure out how to just make the behaviors stop. When we understand the bigger story and how that interacts with our own story, we can start to make lasting changes in our families.

Creating Connection gives you the tools and information necessary to support your growing family, whether you are beginning the journey of parenthood prior to conception, are expecting your first baby, or are a veteran parent. The infor-mation in this book will support you on your own journey of self-understanding, as well as understanding your child more deeply.

Even if you didn’t have a great beginning yourself or there were significant challenges in your child’s early life, know that there is always hope. Families are resilient. It isn’t about having the perfect set of events, but in understanding your family’s story and using some of the tools suggested to reconnect or repair those early bumps in your journey. Remem-ber that now!

Creating Connection isn’t about creating another reason to beat yourself up because this or that happened or didn’t happen. Creating Connection opens the doors to deeper under-standing so you can create more connection in your family starting today.

134 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2012

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book for caregivers!!

Highly recommend! You will absolutely love this book and the information therein to give your family a better chance for connection.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, not a bad book, as I believe the primary message is helpful. However, the author treats conscious parenting as a panacea, which it is not. By adopting this monomania, she leaves quite a bit on the table untouched and unexplored.

A peeve of this book is her frequent use of the phrase "close proximity," which, of course, is redundant and irritating.