Image: The Power of Showing Up by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 7 out of 10. An important parenting book that covers essential, foundational attachment-based parenting approaches.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 7.11.2021; No. 41
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Star Rating – 7 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Authors
Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
About the authors
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is a pediatric psychiatrist, researcher and bestselling author of books on parenting and child emotional development. He is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, Co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute.
Tina Payne Bryson, PhD, is a child psychologist, Director of Parenting for the Mindsight Institute and Child Development Specialist at St. Mark’s School in Altadena, CA. She has co-written several other books with Dr. Siegel.
General description
The Power of Showing Up is a parenting book that provides a persuasive argument that all parents can be good parents no matter what kind of upbringing they had. The Power of Showing Up covers key information on attachment-based parenting and is complementary to the authors’ previous books, The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. This book encourages parents to consider their basic parenting approaches and the relationship environment they are creating for their child and how that might relate to the parent’s own upbringing. The book’s overarching theme is that the types of attachment that children develop influence their development, emotional regulation and future relationships. Topics covered in this book include:
Providing an opportunity for parents to understand how their upbringing can affect their parenting styles
Describing the common-sense reasoning and neuroscience research behind attachment-based parenting
Creating secure attachments through the Four S’s
Safe
Seen
Soothed
Secure
Unique and most important aspects
The Power of Showing Up is probably the most important book that that Drs. Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson have written for parents because it covers the most foundational elements of parenting. In full disclosure, I am a strong advocate of relational, attachment-based parenting approaches. If you understand and apply the principles and strategies in this book, it will be easier to learn and understand more specific and nuanced parenting strategies. While the concepts are basic and broad, they are not always easy and often require a parent’s most precious commodity: time. If you ignore the basic principles found in The Power of Showing Up, it is more likely that you will struggle in raising your kids.
The question I kept asking myself while reading this book was, “Will the parents who need to read this book do so?” I think the answer is yes. People of various backgrounds and educational levels can find useful information in this book, however, I did not find the text to be especially engaging. The book was a little over 200 pages but felt a bit long due to slightly academic descriptions of basic attachment approaches. Important concepts from this book include:
A brief description of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB)
The adult version of secure attachment, which is “free attachment”
The concept of parents developing “agency” in overcoming past negative experiences in their own childhood
How the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study informs parents about how they were raised and how they want to raise their children
The importance of relationship repair
Strategies for implementing the Four S’s
Best quotes
“What’s the single most important thing I can do for my kids to help them succeed and feel at home in the world? Notice that this question focuses less on which skills and abilities you want to build in your children, and more on how you approach the parent-child relationship. Our answer is simple (but not necessarily easy): Show up for your kids.”
“Showing up means what it sounds like. It means being there for your kids. It means being physically present, as well as providing a quality of presence.”
“The longitudinal research on child development clearly demonstrates that one of the very best predictors for how any child turns out – in terms of happiness, social and emotional development, leadership skills, meaningful relationships, and even academic and career success – is whether they developed security from having at least one person who showed up for them.”
“Even if we didn’t have secure attachment from our own caregivers, we can still provide it to our own children, if we reflected on and make sense of our own attachment history. That is exhilarating, research-established news!”
Who would enjoy this book?
Readers who are looking for a broad foundation upon which to add more specific relationship-based parenting approaches would likely enjoy The Power of Showing Up.
Who would not enjoy this book?
Readers who are looking for specific, quickly-applied parenting strategies might not enjoy The Power of Showing Up.
Conclusion
The Power of Showing Up is an important parenting book that covers essential, foundational attachment-based parenting approaches.