The Best Books About Parenting

I tried to satisfy a lot of different instincts on this shelf as there is simply no single way to parent—and anyone who parents siblings knows, no two kids are alike and they all need radically different things. If there is one manual that I would prescribe to all parents it’s probably Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld’s Hold On To Your Kids—it’s about how in our age of disconnection, children become peer-attached rather than adult-attached (you can really only have one True North). It’s not that kids today are crueler, it’s simply that no child can function as a reliable True North for anyone else, much less another child.) There is a lot in here on attachment theory, childhood development, as well as more specialized focuses like diet.

Please, as always, drop recommendations in the comments, I am always all ears for more books to read. The link below will take you to a shelf I curated on Bookshop with my picks—I earn an affiliate commission there, but it is ALWAYS MY PREFERENCE that you shop at and support your local bookseller, so no pressure to buy via Bookshop. This is the easiest way for me to organize and keep picks updated. Happy reading!