Being the Grownup: Love, Limits, and the Natural Authority of Parenthood

by Adelia Moore

$15.95

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Author: Adelia Moore

Publisher: Adelia Moore

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 0984856064
ISBN 13: 978-0984856060

Hardcover:
ISBN 10: 0984856072
ISBN 13: 978-0984856077

Children need adults to survive. This, despite the profound change our digital era has wrought on family life, remains the essence of parenthood. Being the Grownup The Natural Authority of Parenthood begins not with what should be, but with what is: If you are a parent, it is your job to provide shelter and safety, to make decisions about education, childcare, health and nourishment, to create the habitat that is the context and crucible of family life. Being the Grownup helps parents translate their determination to care for and protect their children into the clarity they need to communicate authority with a firm confidence, whether for bedtime, screen-time or mealtime. Just as she would in a clinical conversation, the author shifts the focus away from disciplinary strategies and back to the core of parenthood, the relationship between parents and children as it evolves, moment-to-moment, from the dependence of infancy to the autonomy of young adulthood.

There are a host of reasons that contemporary parents might feel uneasy about embracing their natural authority. There have always been parents who doubted themselves, often blaming their children, who may seem determined to challenge every limit. If authority is natural, why is that so? Looking for the answer in the characteristics of developmental stages or parenting strategies often leaves parents frustrated, because being a parent is not something you do to a child but something you are with a child. Parental authority is not simply a matter of discipline with time-outs, or even skilled negotiation and conflict resolution. Parent and child are two human beings whose bodies and voices, experiences, perspectives and emotions shape their interactions with each other. Like everything else about relationships, it's complicated.

Being the Grownup zeroes in on the core challenge for every parent, the hard work of building a relationship that combines trust and connection with confident authority children can feel and rely on. Relationships take time, and so does learning about relationships. Readers will not find bullet points or formulas. Instead, to more fully understand what happens moment to moment between parents and children, and what patterns between them may strengthen or undermine parents' authority, my readers will find moments in the parent-child relationship examined from a variety of angles. Each chapter delves deep into a topic, including attachment, temperament, family systems theory and body language, making connections from theory and research to everyday family life.

No one book can tell you what to do in every situation with every child. There are simply too many variables. That's why it's important to know more about what to think about parenthood and the relationship you have with each of your children: Being the Grownup helps you do that.

Review

"Being the Grownup will help anyone who works with children see the parental role with new clarity and appreciate what parents can mean and do for their children."--Perri Klass, New York Times columnist, The Checkup; Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University

"Well-researched and thought-provoking, Being the Grownup puts forth the radical notion that both parents and children are, well, people, and that like all people, their relationships grow stronger with communication, clearly-articulated boundaries, and respect. I'm so grateful for this book." --Kim Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Small Animals: Parenting in the Age of Fear

"With a minimum of jargon (despite robust scholastic credentials and referencing), and compelling narratives parents will trust, she helps parents feel confident--and competent--in the ways they learn to set limits with love and conviction . . . Adelia Moore has written an authoritative guide for families." --Kyle D. Pruett, MD, Clinical Professor of Child Psychiatry and Nursing, Yale School of Medicine, author with Marsha Kline Pruett, of Partnership Parenting; How Mothers and Fathers Parent Differently.

"Moore deftly interweaves theory from psychology, family therapy, anthropology, and neuroscience with her own experience as a clinical psychologist, mother, and grandmother to develop her ideas about the central importance of authority in parents' relationships vis-à-vis their children. The wisdom this book conveys about accountability in parent-child relationships is bound to be enduring for decades to come." --Marjorie Goodwin, Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, UCLA; author with Asta Cekaite of Embodied Family Choreography

"How much can you let your child do, and when? These are questions society keeps answering with more and more pressure to "helicopter." This book will help you break free of that stifling mandate and understand how much wisdom and authority you have in deciding how and when your child encounters the wider world." --Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and founder of Let Grow

"Being the Grownup is an ideal guide for those moments with children when we find ourselves buffeted by crosswinds or at sea . . . Moore thinks with us about how to assume rather than question our natural authority. Drawing deeply from the well of her experience as mother, grandmother, and psychotherapist, she has written a very wise book." --Carol Gilligan, professor of Humanities and Applied Psychology, New York University and the author of In a Different Voice among other works

From the Foreword by Diane Ehrensaft, PhD:

In Being the Grownup: Love, Limits and the Natural Authority of Parenthood, Adelia Moore has composed a forceful, engaging account of the authority implicit in parenthood. Instead of addressing the angst and challenges Western parents find in being the "boss" in the family, Moore starts with a simple premise: Authority comes with the territory of parenthood. In other words, it just is. Situating this premise within both developmental psychology and anthropology, Moore's book revolves around the relationship underpinning parental authority and the way it emerges, interaction by interaction, between parent and child. She illustrates the push-pull between parents being in charge and parents being facilitators of a child's autonomy and emotional development.

About the Author

Adelia Moore, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in New York City specializing in therapy with couples, parents of children of all ages, and families. She also works with young adults still working out relationships with their parents. Moore received her BA in English from Harvard, a master's degree in Child Development from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Cincinnati. Moore has worked in diverse settings including a community health center, a homeless shelter, a children's hospital in Newington, CT, and private practice. She was an adjunct professor of psychology at Trinity College, Hartford, CT, St. Joseph's University, West Hartford, CT, and New York University. Moore's essays have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and HuffPost. She has four grown sons and five grandchildren. She lives in Manhattan and Upstate New York with her husband. Look for her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and at Adeliamoore.com

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Being the Grownup: Love, Limits, and the Natural Authority of Parenthood