PDF Summary:The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, by Philippa Perry

Do you want to cultivate a healthy relationship with your child? Do you wish you had the tools to understand them better? In The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, Philippa Perry offers guidance for strengthening your bonds with your child and raising an emotionally secure individual. She argues that you can improve your parent-child relationship no matter your child’s age by examining how your parents’ style of parenting impacts your own, listening to your child, and meeting them with respect and understanding.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Perry’s advice for fostering a strong, loving parent-child relationship. Additionally, we’ll explore various ways to positively influence your child’s behavior, including the way they treat themselves and the way they learn to resolve conflicts. In our commentary, we’ll examine parenting advice from other authors and look deeper into some of the psychological principles underpinning Perry’s ideas.

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Putting It Into Practice: Respond to Your Baby’s Cries

Second, Perry states that the best way to create a secure attachment is by consistently responding to your baby’s cries. Babies can only express themselves by crying out. They can’t soothe themselves, nor do they have object permanence (our ability to discern that something exists when we can’t see it). Therefore, they can’t reason with themselves and know that you’re still close to them if you’re not within their sight. When no one responds to them, they feel alone and scared.

(Shortform note: Other parenting experts agree that consistently responding to your baby’s cries is an important way to ensure your baby feels safe and cared for. This is especially important in the first few months of life—babies don’t begin to develop object permanence until seven or eight months old. Another way to instill a sense of safety in your baby is by talking to them. They may not understand what you’re saying, but your voice will be calming and reassuring. Additionally, babies learn about the world through touch, so give them a lot of cuddles and kisses when soothing them.)

Responding to babies’ cries is how you show them that they’re safe—they learn how to soothe themselves when you’re consistently comforting them and showing them that you’re there for them. If, in contrast, you frequently let your baby cry for long periods without going to them, Perry argues that they’ll eventually stop crying because they’re suppressing the feelings that make them cry—not because they’ve learned to calm down in a healthy way.

(Shortform note: Babies learn self-soothing from their parents at the neurological level. Neural pathways that deliver soothing neurochemicals form when babies experience parental soothing. When babies are left unattended for long periods when crying, these pathways may not form in the same way, making it more difficult for them to manage their emotions, anxiety, and behavior throughout their lives.)

Area #3: Teaching Your Child to Acknowledge and Name Their Emotions

According to Perry, recognizing, naming, and respecting your child’s emotions is a key way to form a strong bond with them and raise them to be mentally healthy individuals. By doing this, you teach them how to understand, regulate, and express their emotions in a healthy way, which is an important part of their development.

(Shortform note: The practice of noticing a child’s emotions and using them as opportunities for teaching and intimacy is called emotion coaching. Years of research suggest that children are healthier and more successful in all aspects of life when their parents employ this technique with them. If you want to start emotion coaching, consider using specific prompts that validate and soothe your child's emotions—you can find numerous examples online.)

The Different Ways We Deal With Emotions

Perry states that typically, parents who have trouble handling difficult emotions fall into two categories: They suppress their feelings, or they react disproportionately. If you tend to suppress your feelings, you’ll be more likely to do the same to your child, either by dismissing their feelings or telling them they should feel something different. Because this makes the child feel like their emotions are insignificant or undesirable, they’ll likely avoid expressing feelings to you in the future.

If you tend to react disproportionately, you might become overwhelmed by your child’s emotions, getting upset and crying with them. You take on their emotional state. In this case, your child may stop expressing their emotions to you because they feel like they’re upsetting you too much or you’re unfairly seizing their feelings.

(Shortform note: To avoid becoming overwhelmed by your child’s emotions, consider using the following steps. First, take a deep breath to center yourself before you engage with your child. Second, remind yourself that your primary goal is to help your child calm down and to build a closer relationship with them, not to add to their emotional turmoil. Third, refrain from taking your child’s feelings personally, especially when they’re upset with you—they’re not fully developed and aren’t capable of self-regulating their emotions like you are. Fourth, use a mantra to calm yourself down. For example, you might tell yourself, “This is not an emergency, but an opportunity to help.”)

Ideally, you recognize and respect your child’s feelings by naming and affirming them (which we’ll further discuss below), instead of denying them or making the emotions your own. When you’re able to do this, your child will feel understood and comforted instead of criticized. Over time, as you continuously show respect for their feelings and offer them love and understanding, they’ll learn to work through their emotions and comfort themselves.

(Shortform note: Some experts argue that as you’re working on letting your child feel all of their emotions and helping them through the experience, you should remember that limiting your child’s behavior isn’t the same as limiting their emotions. Behavior is separate from emotions, and you should teach your child that though it’s OK to feel any emotion, not all forms of expression for those feelings are OK. For example, you might teach them that it’s OK to be upset, but it’s not OK to hit someone to show them that you’re upset with them. You set the behavioral limit that hitting isn’t OK, but there’s still no limit to what they’re allowed to feel.)

How Hiding Your Negative Feelings May Affect Children

Expressing negative emotions in a healthy way is better than suppressing them in front of children, according to some research. A study conducted on 109 parent-child pairs found that suppressing stressful emotions made parents less positive partners during a collaborative task.

First, the parents completed a public speaking task and received negative feedback, which was meant to induce stress. Then, researchers directed them to complete a Lego project with their child. The children had written instructions but weren’t allowed to touch the Legos, and the parents had to put the Legos together—this meant the pairs had to work closely with each other.

Researchers told a random selection of the parents to suppress their feelings of stress from the public speaking task during the Lego activity. These parents didn’t offer as much help or warmth to their children, and the children in these pairs were less responsive to and positive with their parents. This suggested that the children picked up the negative emotions more strongly when their parents tried to hide their feelings instead of expressing them.

Putting It Into Practice: Name Your Child’s Emotions

Perry says to practice naming your child’s emotions when they’re upset to show that you understand them and to show them how to do it for themselves. As you do this, remember to consider their age and how it affects their ability to express themselves.

Your child may react in a way that seems irrational to you, but their feelings are as valid as anyone else’s. For example, say your child falls and hits their knee. They have a small scrape, but you can tell they aren’t seriously hurt. Still, they begin to cry inconsolably. You might feel tempted to tell them not to cry or that their scrape is no big deal because it hurts you to see them so upset. However, this likely won’t comfort them since to them, the injury feels like a real danger. They might stop crying to please you, but they won’t feel understood.

Instead, acknowledge their feelings by saying something such as “You hurt your knee and I see that made you feel scared.” This shows them that you’re in tune with their feelings, they’re allowed to feel that way, and you’re there to support them. Over time, they’ll learn to name their emotions themselves.

(Shortform note: There are many different ways to respond empathetically to your child and help them name their feelings. For example, you might state what you perceive they’re feeling outright: “You’re feeling [emotion] because of [event or circumstance].” Alternatively, use the phrase, “It sounds like you’re feeling…” to acknowledge that you might not be right in your observation.)

How Children Express Emotions at Different Ages

As Perry notes, children express their emotions differently depending on their age. From the time your child is born to the age of nine months, they’ll primarily use vocalizations, facial expressions, and body language to communicate their emotions and needs to you. For instance, they might cry to indicate discomfort or squeal to indicate joy.

Between seven and 18 months, they’ll likely begin expressing themselves more intentionally. For example, they might push away food that they don’t like, or they might hug you when they’re scared or want to show affection.

Between 16 and 24 months, they’ll probably start using a mix of gestures and language to express their emotions, such as smiling, clapping, and verbally expressing pride about something they accomplished.

By the time they’re 21 to 36 months, they may start describing and naming emotions themselves. Additionally, they’ll likely start acting out emotions while they’re playing pretend and demonstrating more complex emotions, such as guilt.

Area #4: Making Amends When You Make a Mistake

Perry argues that, though you should strive for the emotional stability and empathy displayed in the above strategies, being a good parent isn’t about behaving perfectly all the time. You’ll occasionally react in an unhelpful way, hurt your child’s feelings, or misunderstand your child. What’s most important for your parent-child relationship is that you acknowledge your imperfections and make amends for the harm you cause.

Some people think that to feel safe, a child needs to believe their parents don’t make mistakes. However, this belief is faulty—children need you to model honesty and humility for them, not perfection. If you act as if you’re always right and never acknowledge your mistakes, you risk making your child feel like you don’t care about their feelings or that they’re responsible for your moods.

Your child’s intuition will likely tell them when you’re wrong, but your refusal to acknowledge it will make them question the validity of their feelings, increasing the likelihood that they’ll suppress them later. This may negatively affect the way they relate to other people, leading them to accommodate other people’s needs over their own.

Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Your Mistakes (And Why You Should Admit Them)

As Perry suggests, ignoring your mistakes as a parent can have serious consequences for the way your child relates to others. If you make a habit of never acknowledging or actively denying any time you’re wrong, that can become gaslighting—a manipulation tactic that conditions victims to doubt their perceptions by consistently refuting them. No matter how good your intentions are toward your child, this pattern of behavior can make them more susceptible to emotional manipulation and gaslighting in their other relationships, since they’ve become used to doubting their reality. This leaves them vulnerable to abusive relationships.

There are several benefits of admitting when you’re wrong as a parent beyond demonstrating honesty and validating your child’s feelings. For instance, when your child sees you admitting your mistakes, it makes them feel like they can make mistakes too. This reduces the chance they’ll become a perfectionist, which can lead to anxiety, difficulties in school and work, and low self-worth. Additionally, admitting your mistakes makes you stay accountable as a parent and a person—when you acknowledge wrongdoing, you’re less likely to repeat the same behavior.

Putting It Into Practice: Change Your Behavior and Apologize

To make amends for mistakes, Perry says to start by apologizing to your child and explaining what you did wrong, why you did what you did, and what you’d do differently. Then, change your behavior—figure out what prompted your unfair reaction or the misunderstanding, and act differently the next time a similar situation arises.

(Shortform note: When making amends with your child, the following tips from parenting experts may be helpful: First, acknowledge any hurt feelings they may have. For example, you might say, “I’m sorry, I know I upset you.” Second, explain the circumstances behind your reaction. This isn’t making an excuse—it’s giving your child the context they need to feel compassion for you and see that you’re human. For example, you might tell them that you snapped at them because you had a hard day at work, but that doesn’t make it OK. Third, be specific when telling them what you’ll do to ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen again. For example, you might promise that you’ll take a deep breath before reacting the next time.)

Shaping Your Child’s Other Relationships

In the last section, we discussed different methods for forming a close bond with your child. In this section, we’ll explore two areas of parenting Perry identifies for helping your child develop healthy relationships with themselves and others:

1. Assessing how you speak about yourself and how that might influence your child
2. Modeling healthy conflict resolution so your child feels safe and secure

Area #1: Assessing How You Speak About Yourself

According to Perry, the way you speak to yourself has a big impact on your child’s relationship with themself. Children model their behavior on the behavior of their parents, so if you tend to speak negatively about yourself, your child will likely develop that behavior as well.

For example, say you have an inner belief that you’re not very smart. Even if it’s not true, it makes you feel deeply insecure. Therefore, anytime someone compliments you for your cleverness or skills, you make a self-deprecating comment diminishing your intelligence. Likewise, anytime you make a mistake, you take it as evidence that confirms your self-assessment.

You don’t treat or think of your child the same way, so you don’t think about how your comments about yourself affect them. However, over time, you might notice they stop trying very hard in school, they’re afraid to make mistakes, or they frequently minimize their intelligence. By watching you put yourself down, they’ve learned to do the same.

(Shortform note: Some psychologists assert that you should think of your child as if they’re an alien observing and cataloging everything that you do. When your child arrives in this world, they (like an alien) have no inherent understanding of language or social customs—they learn it all from you. They learn how to fit in by imitating the behaviors they see in you because that’s what they perceive as normal. This includes negative self-relationships.)

Putting It Into Practice: Address Negative Self-Talk

To set your child up to have a positive self-relationship, you must address the negative ways you treat and speak to yourself. Perry states that the first step is to recognize your patterns of negative self-talk. These patterns often go unnoticed because they’re embedded in your self-image, so it’s important to consciously identify them. Start by writing down every negative thought you have about yourself for a day.

Once you’ve identified a negative thought, don’t try to reason with it—engaging with it will take up too much of your energy and be unproductive. Instead, acknowledge the thought and pretend it’s an uncomfortable comment made by a person whose opinion you disagree with. Remind yourself that they can share their opinion, but you don’t have to listen.

(Shortform note: One way to take power from your inner critical voice is to give it a name as if it’s a person. This will help you visualize it as something outside of yourself, as Perry suggests. Additionally, ascribing a silly name to it will make it seem less threatening, making the thoughts seem silly as well.)

Then, prove the thought wrong by doing something it claims you can’t do. By doing the thing that feels impossible, you build your confidence and create evidence to look back on when you begin to question yourself again. For instance, returning to our previous example, you might start working on the book you’ve always wanted to write despite the negative thoughts that tell you you’re not smart enough to be an author.

(Shortform note: You can also collect evidence against negative thoughts by moving your attention away from them and toward positive things you’re already doing. Praise yourself for five things you do well a day, whether for simply getting out of bed, exercising, having a nice conversation, and so on. Praising yourself consistently will help reframe your thoughts away from constant criticism.)

Examples of Common Negative Thought Patterns

Negative thought patterns can be difficult to recognize since they’re so automatic. Look for these common patterns, and write it down any time you observe one in your thoughts:

Overgeneralizing. This is when, in response to a situation, you think that something bad always happens to you or something good never happens to you. These thoughts contribute to a defeatist mindset that precludes positive change.

Ignoring positive experiences. This leads you to always feel inadequate or underappreciated since you can never recognize when something is going well for you.

All-or-nothing perspective. In this thought pattern, you see everything in extremes. If something isn’t perfect, then it’s a failure.

Jumping to conclusions. This is when you have a negative thought or a feeling and you form a conclusion based on it, even if there’s no evidence to support it.

Area #2: Modeling Healthy Conflict Resolution

Just as it’s important to teach your child to interact with themselves in a healthy way, Perry argues that it’s important to teach them how to treat others, especially during conflicts. It’s inevitable that there will sometimes be conflicts in a household, whether between two parents, between a parent and a child, or between two other people. Having conflicts isn’t inherently an issue—it’s the way you approach these disputes that matters.

Conflict resolution has a large effect on your child’s feelings of security and safety. If conflicts are consistently handled in nonconstructive, dysfunctional ways, a child may feel emotionally insecure in their home space—unable to relax because they never know when the next conflict will happen. As they’re always on alert, they may find it hard to be open and curious when interacting with the rest of the world.

How Handling Conflict Predictably Helps Children

Resolving conflict predictably makes a child feel emotionally and physically safe, according to Nathaniel Branden in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. The rules don’t constantly change, and the parents act relatively stably. (In the context of conflict resolution, this might mean consistently using the same methods for handling disagreements and not reacting volatilely.)

Growing up in a predictable environment supports the development of self-efficacy: If children can accurately predict what will happen in their home, they learn that their mind is useful and trustworthy. When they trust their mind, they grow confident in their judgment, and they can approach new people and new things with curiosity instead of fear.

To model healthy conflict resolution for your child—whether you’re in a disagreement with them or with someone else—Perry suggests paying attention to your language.

Putting It Into Practice: Avoid Accusatory Statements

According to Perry, when bringing up an issue, it’s best to avoid accusatory statements about what the other person did wrong. Using accusatory language can make them feel as if you’re creating a narrative and you’re unwilling to hear their point of view.

Instead, use first-person pronouns and focus on how the situation makes you feel. For example, instead of saying, “You never help with the laundry, and that’s why the house is a mess,” say, “I’d appreciate it if you helped more with the laundry because it’s hard for me to keep everything tidy myself.”

Further Benefits of “I Statements” and Advice for Conflict Resolution

Non-accusatory “I statements” have additional benefits beyond showing that you’re open to other points of view. First, these statements help you assert your needs without making the other person feel blamed or defensive. They also show that you’re in control of your emotions. Additionally, they’re solutions-focused: Instead of sending the message that there’s something wrong with the other person and they need to fix it, you’re sending the message that you have a problem you’d like to find a solution for together.

Finally, “I statements” can help move a conflict along by prompting reciprocity. We have a psychological tendency to reciprocate what someone gives us, including communication. This means that if you speak in a non-confrontational, feelings-focused manner, the other person will likely mirror your behavior.

Additionally, when working through a conflict in front of your kids, ensure that you resolve the conflict in front of them too. If the resolution happens where they can’t see it, they won’t get the full benefit of seeing you work things out, and they won’t be able to learn from it. Likewise, they won’t get any closure on the disagreement, so they might worry that it’s still happening.