Book review: Buddhism for parents on the go

Reviewed by Lyn McErlean

This little orange book landed on my desk “Buddhism for parents on the go – gems to minimise stress.” I thought for a second “can I review this fairly, I am not Buddhist? I know a little bit about Buddhism but not much! “

So my fair honest review: get this book! If you ever needed a little strategy whispered in your ear to stay calm and focused on the behaviour and not the child, a new way of looking at the old issue this is the book.

Sarah has little sections on how to rethink our strategies of parenting and to manage daily traumas in a kind and simple way.  Each of the sections are categorised by the main event or feeling for example sections: Aging, anger, boredom, fussy eaters, shyness and worrying to name a few.

You can go to the section you might think suits your issue or you can do as I did and read from cover to cover. I hadn’t meant to read the whole book but the sections are bite size readable and make perfect sense. I had a calming come over me as I read the book and felt that even though I didn’t have an immediate event that the calm in this book would help when I needed it (and most likely when I was 10km away from the book).

The book has found a place in our house, it moves from room to room and hasn’t yet found the book shelf which really is the sign for an interesting book.

Using the book I challenged some of the strategies and thinking that I do in raising my children. I read this book before I reviewed “Free Range Kids” and found that there were a few similar ideas. One of the most notable was that she felt we ‘micro-managed’ children timetabling them too much and doing too much for our children. Most of us over-parent and feel that this is better than under-parenting but both these books suggest that a bit of under-parenting will give children more life skills and problem solving skills.

I loved the section on ‘chores”; Sarah stated that she has tried every type of reasoning, pocket money, contracts and nothing works. And goes on to say that she feels tempted to do the work herself and save the stress but with The Buddha’s Frist Noble Truth – that there is dukkha – that is there is suffering, stress and unsatisfactoriness. And our children shouldn’t  grow up not knowing the mundane side of life, otherwise you are only teaching comfort and fun times which is not realistic!

This book has allowed me to take things a little bit slower, to wait patiently that extra 15 seconds, to listen more to my children and to speak less. We all have lessons we can learn from this book and is worth keeping on the coffee table pile, Buddhist or not!

9/10