19 Best Parenting Books (to Read in 2021)
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Being a parent is no easy job.
Good thing that today, help can come in many ways, even through books!
We’ve gathered the Best Parenting Books to read as recommended by 10 experts.
See below!
The most recommended parenting book is The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson.
Table of Contents
- Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology – Diana Graber
- Shame Nation: Choosing Kindness and Compassion in an Age of Cruelty and Trolling – Sue Scheff and Melissa Schorr
- Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too – Adele Faber
- No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame – Janet Lansbury
- All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood – Jennifer Senior
- The ABCs of Learning Issues – Dana Stahl
- The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child – Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
- The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience – Martin E. P. Seligman
- Prime-Time Parenting: The Two-Hour-a-Day Secret to Raising Great Kids – Heather Miller
- The Parent’s Guide to Parenting in the Digital Age – Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
- The Parent’s Guide to YouTube and YouTube Kids – Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
- Screen Balance Inspiration – Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
- College Success Stories That Inspire – Steven Roy Goodman
- The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It – Warren Farrell PhD
- Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting – Dr. Laura Markham
- Positive Discipline: The Classic Guide to Helping Children Develop Self-Discipline, Responsibility, Cooperation, and Problem-Solving Skills – Jane Nelsen Ed.D.
- The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – Daniel J. Siegel
- The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – Daniel J. Siegel
- No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – Daniel J. Siegel
- Protecting Your Child from Sexual Abuse: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Kids Safe – Elizabeth Jeglic, Ph.D. and Cynthia Calkins, Ph.D.
Nationally Recognized Author | Parent Advocate | Family Internet Safety Advocate
Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology – Diana Graber
Diana Graber is the co-founder of Cyberwise and founder of CyberCivics. She’s also one of the first digital literacy teacher’s in our country.
Raising Humans is the first parenting book that compares raising digital kids to building a house — first you need that sturdy foundation.
This author’s approach is user-friendly and will take the sting (and fear) out of parents believing they need to be more cyber-savvy than their kids. Diana Graber refers to devices and social platforms as tools.
She helps give her students the foundation and emotional support to use these tools – and it’s exactly what’s she passing on to parents and readers.
She helps parents build a sturdy structure with four pillars (reputation, privacy, screen-time, relationship – skills) that will withstand the digital storms that may come their way.
Raising Humans offers CyberCivicMoments that are activities for both parents and kids/tweens/teens to participate and learn from (both online and offline). Whether you are building your digital billboard or creating a strong password or maybe detecting fake news, Raising Humans will help make you a digital leader.
Shame Nation: Choosing Kindness and Compassion in an Age of Cruelty and Trolling – Sue Scheff and Melissa Schorr
Sue Scheff was once a target of online shame and won a landmark case for internet defamation and invasion of privacy in 2006. We’re all a click away from digital disgrace, but being an educated parent and having the awareness of what our young people are facing is the first step to being part of the solution.
In the rise of incivility, we are living in an era where online bullying and harassment has become a new normal for all ages. The emotional impact online shame has on young people, especially teens can be overwhelming as we witness them struggling with depression and anxiety as social media is influencing their lives.
Shame Nation addresses these concerns not only for young people, but for parents and anyone that is dealing with online hate as well as the trend of the sexting scandals in schools and the importance of online reputation.
With real life stories that offer teachable moments, and people that have been digitally shamed and gone on to create organizations that help others today, this book is packed full of resources, advice and over a dozen experts in the field of cyber-safety, psychology and online reputation.
It’s a perfect pick for both parents and teens to read together and discuss how they can prevent, overcome and survive digital disasters as well as become upstanders in their communities.
Isn’t it time we bring this shame nation to a civil one?
Health & Wellness Expert, Maple Holistics
Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too – Adele Faber
This book is full of personal anecdotes of parents talking about their own childhood sibling rivalry.
How many of us would be able to spend a few days with our siblings now without arguing?
It helps work through your issues so you can help with your children’s.
No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame – Janet Lansbury
A book that teaches a parent to treat children with respect and trying to meet them wherever they may be.
It teaches you to discipline your children without shame. The book shows us how our children can be their best selves without ruining ourselves in the process.
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood – Jennifer Senior
This book is for exhausted parents, which is most likely all of them. The story captures the day-to-day survival techniques of families from all over the world.
It offers motivation and support for the parents who feel like they just can’t possibly do it all.
Learning Specialist | Educational Consultant | Child/Parent Advocate
The ABCs of Learning Issues – Dana Stahl
The ABCs of Learning Issues is a practical guide to help parents understand various learning disabilities and behaviors that they may observe at home and hear about from their children’s teachers.
It explores 24 of the most commonly observed learning issues, including immature social-emotional development, decoding skills, and academic anxiety.
The book describes each learning issue in layman’s terms, as well as provides clinical and educator definitions. It also offers a robust ‘Resource’ section that includes a glossary, tips for parents to effectively communicate with their children’s school, and a list of organizations that can provide assistance.
Psychologist | International Speaker | Parenting Coach
The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child – Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
This book emphasizes the crucial role that our language and intentions play in the way we parent – it is the difference between parenting from a “yes” place as opposed to a “no” place.
The authors do an incredible job of incorporating brain science in an understandable way and showing us that the way we parent our children changes their brains in powerful ways.
The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience – Martin E. P. Seligman
First published just over a decade ago, the contents of this book are as relevant today as ever.
Written by the founder of the positive psychology field, the book discusses some of the most important elements of child development such as optimism, sense of mastery and competence, self-esteem and negativistic thinking.
It also provides invaluable tools for helping children grow up to be masters of their own thoughts and emotions.
Prime-Time Parenting: The Two-Hour-a-Day Secret to Raising Great Kids – Heather Miller
This is one of THE most practical books on parenting out there. For parents who are looking for concrete advice on how to manage theirs and their children’s 6-8pm routine, this is the book that will show them how to do it in the easiest way possible.
Lawyer | Law Professor | Digital Parenting Coach | eSafety Consultant
The Parent’s Guide to Parenting in the Digital Age – Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
Inside this book are tips that will give you additional support and a boost of confidence as you raise your children in the digital environment.
This guide is full of advice and parent-friendly tips for each age group. The key themes:
- communicate with your children,
- continue the conversation
- critical thinking is invaluable and
- confidence in your parenting.
The Parent’s Guide to YouTube and YouTube Kids – Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
This guide covers the harmful content that your child, tween, or teen may come in contact with, as well as highlighting the creative pull of YouTube. This guide contains YouTube-specific tips and resources to assist parents and caregivers in the digital age.
Screen Balance Inspiration – Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
This is the perfect conversation starter book! Screen Balance Inspiration is designed to provide you with ideas on balancing your family’s screen time and device usage. This guide is one of those resources with the goal to get you started with confidence in parenting this digital age.
Host | Author, College Success Stories That Inspire | Co-Author, College Admissions Together: It Takes a Family
College Success Stories That Inspire – Steven Roy Goodman
Good parenting involves speaking with children about their ideas, talents, and passions.
College Success Stories That Inspire helps readers – parents and students alike – explore academic and extracurricular possibilities at a wide variety of colleges and universities. Each chapter creates opportunities for meaningful conversation within families.
By seeing college life experienced to the fullest, high school students can be motivated by multiple education and career paths.
Founder | Executive Director, Good Dads, Inc.
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It – Warren Farrell PhD
Many of my clients ask what they might read to supplement the work we are doing in couple and family therapy.
As a clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist, I feel very confident in recommending The Boy Crisis. Many have told me how helpful this book has been to them in understanding their own place in the world and giving them insights about how to be the dad and partner they want to me.
School Psychologist | Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting – Dr. Laura Markham
There are tons of parenting books that talk about parenting strategies for addressing and preventing misbehavior. One aspect that I often found was missing was information to help the PARENT.
Dr. Markham has an entire section of her book dedicated to this. She teaches you, as the parent, to stay calm when things get hectic and prevent yourself from yelling at your kids which only makes the situation (and relationship) worse. I am SO thankful I found this book.
Positive Discipline: The Classic Guide to Helping Children Develop Self-Discipline, Responsibility, Cooperation, and Problem-Solving Skills – Jane Nelsen Ed.D.
As a Positive Discipline instructor, so much of what I teach and what I practice in my daily life with my children is based on Dr. Jane Nelson’s Positive Discipline program.
She lays out how to parent with respect and in turn raise respectful and capable children. This book provides so many strategies and tools that do not involve punishment, and instead focus on problem solving and building connection with your children, which I think are some of the most important aspects of parenthood! Nelsen explains why many common parenting practices (like punishment, grounding, etc) are ineffective, and demystifies positive parenting by providing the research and tools that work!
If you want to improve your communication with your child, stop engaging in power struggles, teach your children to be accountable, and have a more cooperative home, you should check this book out.
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – Daniel J. Siegel
Dr. Siegel is a neuropsychiatrist. In his book, he explains how the brain develops in young children and applies this to everyday situations like public tantrums, arguments, and meltdowns.
He also explains how the way we parent, can directly affect our children’s brain, thinking, and development. The way we talk to and parent our kids can have a huge impact! The parenting strategies he clearly discusses in this book are all based in neuroscience research, and they work!
Sharyn Saftler, MPH, RDN, CD, ACE- HCC
Registered Dietitian | Health Coach
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – Daniel J. Siegel
No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – Daniel J. Siegel
The authors use neuroscience to help you understand how your kids brains are developing and how to teach them developmentally appropriate ways to regulate their own emotions and thoughts.
It empowers parents to raise healthy kids who can think rationally, contribute to the world around them and grow into the incredible humans they were meant to be – having little unlearned as they grow up (unlike the situation many millennials are facing now).
Elizabeth Jeglic, PhD and Cynthia Calkins, PhD
Clinical Psychologists | Professors | Sexual Violence Prevention Researchers | Authors
Protecting Your Child from Sexual Abuse: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Kids Safe – Elizabeth Jeglic, Ph.D. and Cynthia Calkins, Ph.D.
This year we published a book based upon the research providing parents with concrete strategies that they can use to protect their children from Sexual Abuse. This is a very important book as parents often feel afraid and helpless to protect their children.
This book gives parents facts and information based upon the most current research evidence about what we know about what they can do to keep their children safe.
