Book Review: Parentshift: Ten Universal Truths that Will Change the Way You Raise Your Kids

Parentshift: Ten Universal Truths that Will Change the Way You Raise Your Kids by Ty and Linda Hatfield and Wendy Thomas Russell from Brown Paper Press. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Parentshift offers a paradigm shift for parents looking for a different parenting style for raising kids. The authors looked at how American parents usually fall into two categories -- controlling or permissive. Controlling parents tend to set too many limits, place unreasonably high expectations, and fail to demonstrate enough empathy with their kids. Permissive parents go the other way by tending to be weak limit and boundary setters, expecting too little, and being empathetic to the fault of treating their children’s problems as their own.

This book teaches a distinct parenting style that the authors describe as heart-centered. Heart-centered parents set strong limits and boundaries, know how to genuinely empathize with their kids, and have high and reasonable expectations of them. The authors show how these skills are associated with children who are kind, confident, compassionate, capable, resilient, and healthy.

They also explain why most adults need to learn this parenting style because most were not raised in a heart-centered way themselves. That’s why they describe it as a paradigm shift and call the book Parentshift.

The book is not about being a "perfect" parent. It is structured as a practical guidebook, with explanations of each of the ten basic "truths" followed by common-sense exercises for how to apply the lessons in real life. It is not aimed at solving one particular problem or navigating one particular age. In fact, much of the book’s advice applies to getting along with adults as much as it does with parenting. Parentshift aims to help parents identify and address virtually any challenge at any age, although it probably would be most helpful for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and teachers of children around age three to five.


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