Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive

by Daniel J. Siegel

INSIDE-OUT EXERCISES Set aside some time to respond to the questions for parental self-reflection. After waiting for at least a day, return to your written responses and read them aloud to yourself. What do you notice? How do your responses feel to you? How do you wish your parents might have offered you a different experience of being parented? How have these experiences shaped your own attitudes toward and interactions with your child? What are the most important lessons you have learned from this reflective process? Our life stories are not fixed and sealed in cement. They evolve as we grow and continue the lifelong process of making sense of our lives. Let yourself be open to your own lifelong development. Without taking time to think about your answers in advance, write for several minutes completing the sentences “A good mother is . . .” or “A good father is . . .” Now, read what you have written aloud to yourself or to someone you trust. Is there anything on the list of responses that you feel you received from your own parent? There may be many; there may be few or none. Of these responses, which qualities do you feel you give to your own children at this time? Choose one quality that you would like to develop initially as an area of growth. Reread the discussion in “Adult Attachment,” above, of the categories of attachment in children and adults and “Attachment Categories”. Now write down your thoughts about how these classifications relate to your own experience ...