In this groundbreaking exploration of the brain mechanisms behind
healthy caregiving, attachment specialist Daniel A. Hughes and veteran
clinical psychologist Jonathan Baylin guide readers through the
intricate web of neuronal processes, hormones, and chemicals that
drive--and sometimes thwart--our caregiving impulses, uncovering the
mysteries of the parental brain.
The biggest challenge to parents, Hughes and Baylin explain, is learning
how to regulate emotions that arise--feeling them deeply and honestly
while staying grounded and aware enough to preserve the parent-child
relationship. Stress, which can lead to "blocked" or dysfunctional care,
can impede our brain's inherent caregiving processes and negatively
impact our ability to do this. While the parent-child relationship can
generate deep empathy and the intense motivation to care for our
children, it can also trigger self-defensive feelings rooted in our
early attachment relationships, and give rise to "unparental"
impulses.
Learning to be a "good parent" is contingent upon learning how to manage
this stress, understand its brain-based cues, and respond in a way that
will set the brain back on track. To this end, Hughes and Baylin define
five major "systems" of caregiving as they're linked to the brain,
explaining how they operate when parenting is strong and what happens
when good parenting is compromised or "blocked." With this awareness, we
learn how to approach kids with renewed playfulness, acceptance,
curiosity, and empathy, re-regulate our caregiving systems, foster
deeper social engagement, and facilitate our children's development.
Infused with clinical insight, illuminating case examples, and helpful
illustrations, Brain-Based Parenting brings the science of caregiving
to light for the first time. Far from just managing our children's
behavior, we can develop our "parenting brains," and with a better
understanding of the neurobiological roots of our feelings and our own
attachment histories, we can transform a fraught parent-child
relationship into an open, regulated, and loving one.
