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The Mindful Parent: How to Stay Sane, Stay Calm and Stay Connected to Your Kids
Provocative, life-changing and kind, this book will transform how you think about yourself as a parent, as well as transforming how you parentIs it even possible to be sane, calm and connected in the chaos of parenting? Yes!
Somewhere in our over-scheduled and frantic lives we’ve lost our intuition around how to bring up kids. Our children come with all they need to flourish to their full potential, and yet we’ve accessorized the parent-child relationship beyond recognition, creating a world of stress for parents and kids.
The Mindful Parent changes all that. It’s a timely and liberating journey back to the heart of what really matters — a deep and lasting relationship with our children. Its unique approach leads us to that deep connection by weaving together the latest in neuroscience, personal story and deceptively simple strategies that are so kind and effective it’s hard not to use them.
Each chapter re-examines a different area of our parenting lives — our busyness and stress levels; our more difficult emotions; our challenging core beliefs; our essential connection with our children; our children’s tricky emotions; and the struggle of conflict-management.
There is more un-learning than learning in this book. It will be read with a huge sigh of relief, a new sense of joy and a realisation that the expertise to parent well is already deep within each one of us.
‘This is one of those rare books which takes an incredibly complex but hugely important subject and turns that into simple tools we can all understand and apply. If you sometimes struggle to be the kind of parent you want to be… this book is an absolute must.’ — Nigel Latta, clinical psychologist, author and speaker
Somewhere in our over-scheduled and frantic lives we’ve lost our intuition around how to bring up kids. Our children come with all they need to flourish to their full potential, and yet we’ve accessorized the parent-child relationship beyond recognition, creating a world of stress for parents and kids.
The Mindful Parent changes all that. It’s a timely and liberating journey back to the heart of what really matters — a deep and lasting relationship with our children. Its unique approach leads us to that deep connection by weaving together the latest in neuroscience, personal story and deceptively simple strategies that are so kind and effective it’s hard not to use them.
Each chapter re-examines a different area of our parenting lives — our busyness and stress levels; our more difficult emotions; our challenging core beliefs; our essential connection with our children; our children’s tricky emotions; and the struggle of conflict-management.
There is more un-learning than learning in this book. It will be read with a huge sigh of relief, a new sense of joy and a realisation that the expertise to parent well is already deep within each one of us.
‘This is one of those rare books which takes an incredibly complex but hugely important subject and turns that into simple tools we can all understand and apply. If you sometimes struggle to be the kind of parent you want to be… this book is an absolute must.’ — Nigel Latta, clinical psychologist, author and speaker
- GenresParentingNonfiction
289 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 29, 2020
About the author
Shirley Pastiroff
1 book4 followersShirley Pastiroff is a counsellor, mindfulness trainer and parent coach. She has trained thousands of parents in the techniques described in this book, and now works across the education and commercial sectors as well as with individuals and families. Shirley is a former BBC documentary-maker and lives in Auckland, New Zealand with her husband and five children.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 21, 2020
I received a copy of this book through Goodreads giveaways and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Wow, ok, this books feels so simple and so life changing at the same time. I’ve read a lot of parenting books and found some that I’ve had high hopes for but none that really worked the way I thought. But this one is already working and the reason is, as the author states early, that it’s not full of techniques that I now have to try to remember when I’m at my absolute most frustrated and worst state. Instead, it’s a series of practices to put into place to help my brain stay calm more often. That’s the mindfulness. THEN, once you’ve gotten yourself to that brain state, you can include some techniques that will help your kids get there too.
It sounds so simple it can’t possibly work. But it does! In the week or so that I’ve been reading this book, I’ve found myself more mindful of my own mental state and therefore better able to respond to my son’s mental state and we’ve had a much easier week even though NOTHING else changed. Obviously, this is just a week and the book was very top of mind because I was in the thick of it but I’m so thrilled at how it turned out that I’ve got intentions to return to skimming this one for refresher on techniques and exercises after I finish any other book and I really think it’s such a self-evident set of things that it’ll stick so much easier than anything else I’ve read. It’s easy to read, too, because the author easily admits her own failings without judgment (a key technique!) and makes it clear that we as parents are all pretty similar and therefore we can do this too.
Wow, ok, this books feels so simple and so life changing at the same time. I’ve read a lot of parenting books and found some that I’ve had high hopes for but none that really worked the way I thought. But this one is already working and the reason is, as the author states early, that it’s not full of techniques that I now have to try to remember when I’m at my absolute most frustrated and worst state. Instead, it’s a series of practices to put into place to help my brain stay calm more often. That’s the mindfulness. THEN, once you’ve gotten yourself to that brain state, you can include some techniques that will help your kids get there too.
It sounds so simple it can’t possibly work. But it does! In the week or so that I’ve been reading this book, I’ve found myself more mindful of my own mental state and therefore better able to respond to my son’s mental state and we’ve had a much easier week even though NOTHING else changed. Obviously, this is just a week and the book was very top of mind because I was in the thick of it but I’m so thrilled at how it turned out that I’ve got intentions to return to skimming this one for refresher on techniques and exercises after I finish any other book and I really think it’s such a self-evident set of things that it’ll stick so much easier than anything else I’ve read. It’s easy to read, too, because the author easily admits her own failings without judgment (a key technique!) and makes it clear that we as parents are all pretty similar and therefore we can do this too.
January 27, 2021
This book makes my life easier. This is my go-to time and time again when I need to be reminded of tools and thinking frameworks that work for me and my kids. The author is a New Zealand counsellor, mindfulness trainer and mother of five.
She has created a parenting book that considers the parent as well as the child. The focus is not solely on the child. This book is about creating a better connection with your child. Isn’t that what we all want?
This quote clarifies my point: “So much has been taught and written from the starting point of changing our children, but in my experience – both personally and professionally – it doesn’t work so well. If you have ever tried to change anyone else, be they a partner or a friend, you’ll know how hard it is. Our main responsibility, even as a parent, is our own responses. And it’s our own responses that are the key to gently shifting anything we’d like to change in our relationship with our children.”
The Mindful Parent has improved my relationship with my kids. I highly recommend investing the time to read it as it will help you enjoy your family rather than endure them. The message is not about focusing on the past, it’s about giving you skills for today to create a better connection with your child.
I use this book a lot with my clients and when I run courses. My copy is underlined and the pages are tagged and well-thumbed.
One point really hit home with me: “We hide our negative beliefs well, until our children blow our cover”. We can spend a lot of time, trying to hide our insecurities, triggers or pain points. Then children come along, and we are laid bare. How we negotiate that particular minefield is part of our parenting journey. This book is worth having in your back pocket to make the journey a bit smoother.
Some days when everyone is tired, and the wheels have fallen off, you need a jump start. Pick up a copy of The Mindful Parent. It may change your life. My only criticism is I would have liked more references.
One of my favourite parts is a mindfulness exercise Shirley Pastiroff’s son created, and I use this one with my kids. What I like about this exercise is that you can personalise the process to your child and what sort of day they have had. Getting kids creating their own mindfulness exercise is genius. It might be as simple as getting them to describe where their feet have been that day and how their feet felt at the time. For example ‘Wet feet working hard swimming in the sea, feet that can feel the sand, from running up and down the beach. Feet that walked into school that day uncomfortable in too tight socks and covered shoes’.
She has created a parenting book that considers the parent as well as the child. The focus is not solely on the child. This book is about creating a better connection with your child. Isn’t that what we all want?
This quote clarifies my point: “So much has been taught and written from the starting point of changing our children, but in my experience – both personally and professionally – it doesn’t work so well. If you have ever tried to change anyone else, be they a partner or a friend, you’ll know how hard it is. Our main responsibility, even as a parent, is our own responses. And it’s our own responses that are the key to gently shifting anything we’d like to change in our relationship with our children.”
The Mindful Parent has improved my relationship with my kids. I highly recommend investing the time to read it as it will help you enjoy your family rather than endure them. The message is not about focusing on the past, it’s about giving you skills for today to create a better connection with your child.
I use this book a lot with my clients and when I run courses. My copy is underlined and the pages are tagged and well-thumbed.
One point really hit home with me: “We hide our negative beliefs well, until our children blow our cover”. We can spend a lot of time, trying to hide our insecurities, triggers or pain points. Then children come along, and we are laid bare. How we negotiate that particular minefield is part of our parenting journey. This book is worth having in your back pocket to make the journey a bit smoother.
Some days when everyone is tired, and the wheels have fallen off, you need a jump start. Pick up a copy of The Mindful Parent. It may change your life. My only criticism is I would have liked more references.
One of my favourite parts is a mindfulness exercise Shirley Pastiroff’s son created, and I use this one with my kids. What I like about this exercise is that you can personalise the process to your child and what sort of day they have had. Getting kids creating their own mindfulness exercise is genius. It might be as simple as getting them to describe where their feet have been that day and how their feet felt at the time. For example ‘Wet feet working hard swimming in the sea, feet that can feel the sand, from running up and down the beach. Feet that walked into school that day uncomfortable in too tight socks and covered shoes’.
January 6, 2021
“The Mindful Parent” has changed my life, not just my parenting. Shirley Pastiroff offers a beautiful avenue to finding peace and calm within yourself first, then tools and strategies to find the same peace and calm in your relationship with your children using empathy and connection. The science is robust, the narrative relatable, the tools simple to understand and put into practice. As a Paediatrician, I recommend this book and this parenting approach to so many families, in light of how life changing it has been for me!
January 27, 2021
This book has really helped me and not just my parenting. I feel like it's one I can revisit over and over and still get more from. The way she writes is kind and caring without being condescending. And the practices are simple and its clear how they can for into even a busy life.
January 4, 2021
I loved this book. Parts of it felt like it was written for me. Lots of helpful ah ha's and mindset shifts to try out.
January 18, 2021
An excellent book - highly recommend to all.
December 22, 2025
3.5 rounded up
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews