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T<\/span>wenty-five years ago, as a new mother trying to figure out what kind of mom I wanted to be, I went in search of books to guide me. I hoped to find some wise mothering mentors who could shine a light on the path at my feet and say, \u201cHere, follow me, come this way.\u201d<\/p>\nLooking back on those days now, I realize how much things have changed. Back then, there were no\u00a0cell phones, the word \u201ctext\u201d referred to print on a paper page, and news of the world arrived via the newspaper that landed on our doorstep each morning.<\/p>\n
We bought our first computer in 1990, when Henry was three months old, so I could begin working from home at my new job editing The Best American Short Stories<\/strong>. My Apple IICX could run two programs at once, Clarisworks and Filemaker Pro, which meant I could do word-processing (an outdated phrase if every there was!) and keep a database of my two hundred-plus magazine subscriptions. I dialed in for an internet connection, kept all my reading notes on file cards, and corresponded with authors and friends through the mail.<\/p>\n There were no blogs to read or online parenting forums to join, there was no Amazon to browse nor any algorithm recommending books for me to buy, there was no Facebook. My husband took photos of our new baby boy with his 3-pound Nikon, we dropped the rolls of film off at CVS, and then carefully placed our 4 x 6 prints into a photo album, sending dupes off to the grandparents.<\/p>\n It all seems pretty quaint in retrospect, so innocent and simple. But at the time, working and raising children and trying to do it all and have it all and give it all to them, I still sensed that life was moving too fast. Much as I yearned for less pressure and more fun, my days were spent juggling: too much stuff, too many choices, too many obligations, never enough time.<\/p>\n We had a second son, and I kept on searching in the pages of books for a mothering soul mate, a friend with whom to share this challenging, rewarding journey.<\/p>\n I found plenty of expert advice on what my children should be doing at three months, six months, a year, and onward \u2013 there was no shortage of information about discipline, developmental milestones, feeding, crying, childhood illnesses, and separation anxiety. Although I renewed my subscription to Mothering magazine, the articles made me more uncertain, as if I\u2019d already failed my children the moment I gave up on cloth diapers or bought baby food off the grocery store shelf rather than pureeing my own organic carrots. I found inspiration in Polly Berrien Berends\u2019 timeless classic Whole Child\/Whole Parent<\/a><\/strong> and some profoundly wise counter-cultural enlightenment in Joseph Chilton Pearce\u2019s Magical Child<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n But the calm, kind, older and wiser friend I was yearning for never did appear.<\/p>\n F<\/span>inding my way forward, reading the works of Thomas Moore (especially Care of the Soul<\/a><\/strong> and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life<\/a><\/strong>), I began to grow as both a person and a mother. And I began to write my own version of the book I so wanted to read myself, with the idea that the living and writing would feed each other and that perhaps, deep down, I already knew more than I thought I did.<\/p>\n Last week, I opened an envelope containing a royalty payment for Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry<\/strong><\/a>. These modest checks have arrived steadily, twice a year, for fifteen years.<\/p>\n It is one of the great surprises and joys of my life that this small, personal book inspired so long ago by my own everyday life with my two young children continues to find its way in the world even now, speaking to parents in nine languages and to a whole new generation of families across the globe. My two sons are grown, 23 and nearly 26. But hardly a week goes by when I don\u2019t hear from a mother somewhere who has read Mitten Strings<\/a><\/strong> and discovered a sense of kinship with my yearning, seeking younger self.<\/p>\n And over time, I\u2019ve come to see that although the world is far more complicated than it was in 2000 when Mitten Strings<\/a><\/strong> was published, the ideas contained within its pages are timeless and universal. We can all use reminders to pause and pay attention to the invisible and the ineffable. We all need support when we choose to put quiet time or family time first. And it helps to know we aren\u2019t alone in our longings for peace, intimate connection, and simple pleasures.<\/p>\n Fortunately for today\u2019s families, \u00a0there are now many wonderful books to support parents who wish to create soulful alternatives to lives that have become over-scheduled, over-stuffed, over-stressed, and over-shared.<\/p>\n I keep\u00a0a small shelf full of the best of these titles. These thoughtful, courageous writers are \u00a0the kinds of friends I longed for at the start of my mothering journey. But even now, as I find new ways to stay close to my adult children, I find much to ponder in these pages and lots of practical wisdom to help us all negotiate the day-to-day challenges of our media-saturated, attention-deprived, perfection-obsessed world.<\/p>\n And so to that end, I offer this short, idiosyncratic reading list of Best\u00a0Books for Mindful Parents<\/strong>. Each of these books goes beyond the realm of childhood and parenthood; they speak to our human-being-hood. So, treat yourself to some new friends. Or, wrap up some\u00a0Christmas shopping here. The parents (and the children) in your life will thank you.<\/p>\n by Kim John Payne<\/p>\n If you are raising children in these anxious times, you need this book.\u00a0\u00a0(How I wish it had been around when my own sons were little!)\u00a0It will inspire you, reassure you, and, most important of all, it will remind you that less is more, that simplicity trumps complication, that rhythm and routine bring peace to the soul. In this profound and practical guide, Kim John Payne offers parents a doable, step-by-step approach to simplifying everyday family life, from the toy box to the dinner table. In the process, he reveals the rewards to be found in slowing down, savoring our children\u2019s childhoods, and more fully enjoying our own adult lives. \u00a0Kim \u00a0Payne makes such a compelling case for simplifying, streamlining, and scaling back\u00a0that I think of Simplicity Parenting<\/strong>\u00a0as a kind of manifesto for the preservation of childhood. \u00a0I give this book as a gift, more than any other, to all the young families I know.<\/p>\n It is never “too late” to bring inspiration and attention to the flow of family life \u00a0Parents of young children will find many seeds here to plant toward a family life that continues to protect and nurture as children grow. But every stage in a family’s evolution can benefit from a little more space and grace, a little less speed and clutter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n by Galit Breen<\/p>\n For better and for worse, we live in a wired world. Galit Breen has written an indispensable manual of online manners for 21st<\/sup> century parents and their kids. With compassion, humor, insight, and practical wisdom born of some painful firsthand experiences, Galit makes a compelling case for kindness and decency. What would happen if every parent and child in American could read these ten simple rules, learn them by heart, and employ them every time they go online? The world would change dramatically \u2013 for the good of us all.<\/p>\n I have a theory that deep down inside, just like we\u2019re all inherently good, we also already know what\u2019s right. But sometimes this knowing gets muddled. Our online lives start with peeking at people from behind the safety net of an edited and filtered avatar, which can make it even harder to remember what we all know to be true: Kindness Wins.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hands Free Mama<\/strong><\/a> & Hands Free Life<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n by Rachel Macy Stafford<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Five years ago, special ed teacher and Type A, task-driven mom Rachel Macy Stafford had an ah-ha moment. Exhausted, frustrated, distracted and distraught, she decided she was done \u2013 done with racing through her own life and done with saying \u201cHurry up\u201d to her \u201claid-back, carefree, stop-and-smell-the-roses\u201d little girl. She started a blog to chronicle her daily struggles to be fully present and reweave her relationships with her husband and daughters. Pretty soon, Rachel was attracting a million online visitors a month. Her life-changing, hands-free journey resulted in a not-so-small parenting revolution and two best-selling books.<\/p>\n Hands Free Mama<\/strong> is \u201ca guide to putting down the phone, burning the to-do list, and letting go of perfection to grasp what really matters.\u201d Her newest book, Hands Free Life<\/strong> offers nine essential habits for \u201covercoming distraction, living better, and loving more.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel is the kind of mom friend we\u2019d all like\u00a0to have living next door, gentle and self-effacing, generous and wise. Well, we\u00a0can\u2019t invite her over for coffee but we\u00a0can\u00a0join her in the choice to let go of distraction and perfection to embrace what really matters. \u00a0I think of both books as wake-up calls for anyone who wishes to parent more thoughtfully, love more generously, and live more meaningfully.<\/p>\n Today there might be mismatched socks. There might be not-so-healthy food choices. There might be messes, bulges, and fine lines where I don\u2019t want them to be. But today I will be at peace with my less-than-perfect body and my less-than-perfect life. I refuse to waste precious time or hurt precious people (including myself) in my unachievable pursuit of perfection. After all, love doesn\u2019t have to be perfect to be nurturing or nourishing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n by Lucy Jo Palladine, PhD<\/p>\n Are your kids glued to their screens? Are you?<\/p>\n This book has haunted me for months. It also woke me up, not only to the ways technology is rearranging the landscape of childhood, but also to the way it\u2019s slowly but surely reshaped the contours of my own life. New technology finds its way into our homes even faster than we can begin to comprehend its effects on our families. In ways large and small, it\u2019s changing the texture of our daily lives\u00a0and the ways we relate to each other.<\/p>\n Lucy Jo Palladino doesn\u2019t demonize technology \u2013 it\u2019s here to stay and none of us really wants it otherwise. But she does give us the solutions we need to use it more thoughtfully. This practical, step-by-step guide is firmly grounded in science and the latest research, interspersed with compelling stories and firsthand experience.<\/p>\n You will learn a lot in these pages about how your own brain works and how your child\u2019s brain is developing. And you will come away empowered, with the tools you need to help you regain control of your own technology use and teach your children \u2013 from toddlers to teens — how to understand and control their attention, and to realize when their attention is being \u201csnatched.\u201d<\/p>\n I cannot recommend this book highly enough. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to understand how the screens in our hands are altering our most intimate relationships, redirecting our attention, dictating our habits, and transforming our brains.<\/p>\n As we watch technology give rise to a new set of attention problems, we, as parents, need to do something that parents in past decades didn’t have to think about: we need to help our children learn how to resist the distraction their technology creates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n by William Martin<\/p>\n To my mind, no booklist for parents is complete if it doesn\u2019t include this exquisite reminder of what really matters in our daily lives with our children: awe and wonder, gratitude and presence. William Martin\u2019s loose, loving, freshly interpreted rendition of Lao Tzu\u2019s Tao Te Ching distills the essence of that sacred text into accessible, heartfelt wisdom for parents. Here are 81 short chapters \u2013 each one only a page long — that seem to become deeper and more meaningful with each successive reading. It is a perfect gift for new parents, a helping hand to offer to parents who are struggling, and a lifelong guide to encourage each one of us remember that we can teach only by example and that as we devote ourselves to raising our children we are also, in fact, raising ourselves.<\/p>\n Live your own life I have copies of each of Rachel Macy Stafford’s inspiring books, Hands Free Mama<\/a><\/strong> and Hands Free Life<\/a><\/strong>, to give away to one lucky reader, along with a signed copy of my own Mitten Strings for God<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0To enter to win all three books, just\u00a0leave a comment below. \u00a0Answer the question (one that’s on all our minds this season, yes?): How do you\u00a0create moments of stillness in your daily life with your loved ones?<\/strong><\/p>\n Feeling shy, or too frazzled to respond? \u00a0You can simply say, “count me in.” I’ll choose a winner at random after entries close at midnight on Dec. 19. \u00a0(US and Canada only.) \u00a0Good luck!<\/p>\n Want to read\u00a0these books now? Or tuck them into someone else’s\u00a0Christmas stocking? \u00a0You can order any of them by clicking on the hyper-linked titles above. \u00a0(These are Amazon affiliate links.)<\/p>\n Twenty-five years ago, as a new mother trying to figure out what kind of mom I wanted to be, I went in search of books to guide me. I hoped to find some wise mothering mentors who could shine a light on the path at my feet and say, \u201cHere, follow me, come this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20,21,27,41,8,9,10,15],"tags":[295,296,324],"class_list":{"0":"post-14305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-book-reviews","8":"category-books","9":"category-books-for-parents","10":"category-family-life","11":"category-mitten-strings-for-god","12":"category-parenting","13":"category-parenting-boys-parenting","14":"category-parenting-teens","15":"category-writing-and-reading","16":"tag-mindfulness-2","17":"tag-mitten-strings-for-god","18":"tag-parenting-2","19":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"519zubFyxUL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.katrinakenison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/519zubFyxUL._SX322_BO1204203200_.jpg?resize=324%2C499\")
Simplicity Parenting<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"galit-breen-kindness-wins\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.katrinakenison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/galit-breen-kindness-wins-329x500.jpg?resize=329%2C500\")
Kindness Wins<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n![\"hfmbook\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.katrinakenison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/hfmbook.png?resize=263%2C399\")
![\"book-sb\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.katrinakenison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/book-sb.jpg?resize=263%2C400\")
<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n![\"41Hab6n96qL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.katrinakenison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/41Hab6n96qL._SX331_BO1204203200_.jpg?resize=333%2C499\")
Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers: A Step by Step Guide to Balancing Your Child\u2019s Use of Technology<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"418YioXR6PL._SX269_BO1,204,203,200_\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.katrinakenison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/418YioXR6PL._SX269_BO1204203200_.jpg?resize=271%2C498\")
The Parents Tao te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nwith all your heart,
\nwith all your mind,
\nand with all your soul.
\nThere is no need to live theirs.
\nThey will do that wonderfully
\nby themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nholiday give-away<\/span><\/h3>\n