Reading parenting books, for me, doesn’t mean taking every bit of advice and utilizing it exactly how it’s presented. I use parenting books as resources for improvement. I take what I’ve learned and apply it in a way that works for my kid and my family dynamic.
The authors of this book don’t shove their agenda down your throat. They offer suggestions on how and what to improve and let you do with that what you will. I didn’t feel manipulated or judged in any way. It was inclusive text that is strictly meant to educate the reader, and help foster emotional maturation within our children. It was like talking to a professional friend of sorts. I also really respect that their methods apply to kids of all ages and they offer suggestions for how to approach different methods with children in varying age groups.
There are a lot of useful tips in this book, ones I very much intend to put to good use and some that I already have used. Right hand on heart, left hand on belly, take a deep breath until you are relaxed and then discuss how and what you feel. My son has already been doing this one very simple thing and he is able to calm down and communicate with me in a coherent, logical way. (However coherent and logical a 5 year old can be, that is.) I’ve tried that method myself and it does work. It’s such an oddly simplistic way to return to equilibrium, or what’s known as “The Green Zone.”
The greatest lesson I’ve taken away from this book are the 3 color zones. The Green Zone, which is a level-headed, calm and introspective zone where the child feels comfortable with their feelings, can easily communicate them and learns from the experience. The Red Zone, where children are essentially “seeing red”, leaves them unable to, and incapable of, communicating their feelings, and because they are experiencing negative emotions, are not in a position to learn from that experience. Lastly, The Blue Zone, which is when the child turns inward and essentially shuts down as a way to subconsciously protect themselves, which, again, leaves them incapable of learning from that experience and connecting with their feelings. The Green Zone = “A Yes Brain.”
The book emphasizes change specifically with how we approach our children and reiterates that it will take practice; a lifestyle change. These ideas will then, hopefully, transcend generations and our children will be able to help their children, who will in turn help their children, so on and so forth.
This is not to say that the rest of the content isn’t useful and/or does not provide helpful tools, because it does. However, my focus moving forward will be to find ways for him to escape the red or blue zone and return into the green zone, so he can experience situations with “A Yes Brain” frame of mind.
The main focus of this book is to help our children become self-aware, and provide them with the necessary tools to respond and react in the appropriate ways, in both positive and negative situations, and to reiterate to children that ALL feelings are important and deserve to be felt, but there are both appropriate and inappropriate ways to express said feelings. I also found the chapter about empathy specifically helpful because I think empathy is something a lot of people lack (which is clearly evident in the divisive nature of our current political climate, to give just one example.) It essentially states that we need to lead by example.
That said, here comes the negative stuff I have to say. The title is a little off to me. I don’t feel like this taught me very much about how to cultivate courage OR curiosity in my child, and if it did, it wasn't anything I didn't already know. Resilience, very much so. I felt this was focused more on the color zones, which is all fine and well and produced a nice result, but the title seems misleading, which some people might not appreciate despite the riveting content. I also found this to be quite repetitive throughout the entire course of the book.
I always want to make improvements to my parenting, and I’m always open to constructive criticism. (At least I like to believe that, anyway.) I have nothing to lose by reading parenting books. Raising a child will be the most important and monumental thing I ever do. If improving how I do that job means reading more books, even better! This book in particular was very helpful for me. I discussed several of these ideas with other Moms and the feedback was all positive. I do intend to recommend this book to quite a few people. I also intend to look into other books by these same authors. I really enjoyed reading this and appreciate their insights and suggestions.
Thank you to NetGalley, Daniel Siegel, Tina Payne Bryson and Random House Publishing Group for a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.