Books About Mental Health
I received a request from a reader for a list of good books regarding mental health and children. I love to hear so many parents are invested in helping their little ones foster mental wellbeing! When a child has mental wellness, there is a positive ripple effect within their family, community and ideally our society. One of my go-to authors is Daniel Siegel, a neuropsychiatrist that specializes in interpersonal neurobiology and the executive director of Mindsight Institute and founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Centre at UCLA. I love his book The Whole-Brain Child as it allows parents to understand how to integrate the child’s emotional brain with the logical brain in order to promote age-appropriate emotional regulation. One of the key strategies he teaches is empathy before correction, naming emotions to tame them, and fostering resilience with his 4 Ss (safe, seen, soothed and secure).
A couple of my favorite books come from a family of authors. Adele Faber wrote How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk which is a great book on fostering healthy communication with your children. The book discusses:
- How to cope with a child’s negative feelings (anger, frustration, disappointment)
- Expressing big feelings without being hurtful
- Engaging your child’s willingness to cooperate
- Setting firm boundaries
- Alternatives to punishment that foster self-discipline
- Resolving family conflicts peacefully
Adele’s daughter, Joanne Faber, continued in her mother’s footsteps by writing How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen and How To Talk When Kids Won’t Listen. The focus of these two books is aimed at teaching powerful communication skills for parents of children ages 2-7. The books empower parents to foster more rewarding relationships with their young children during the most stressful parts of parenting, like tantrums, meltdowns and outright defiance.
These books are great for understanding the foundation of what our child can process at different stages of their lives, how they feel, why they act the way they do and how to help them, and in turn, strengthen the family bond.
Becky Morrison is a Nurse Practitioner based out of Calgary who has specialized in mental health for over a decade. She is finally, after years of infertility, a mother of two busy little boys, and doting fur mom of her gentle giant, Stella. She is, and always will be, a strong advocate for mental wellness at all ages.
