Authors: Jessica Alexander, Iben Sandahl
Book Link

My wife pulled borrowed this from the library and while I’m always skeptical of books about parenting, especially since they rely on anecdotal evidence rather than actual study, I made a casual glance of it.

Then, I read it straight through.

Denmark has always consistently ranked #1 as the country with the highest levels of happiness. Yes, trying to measure such a subjective emotion has its faults, but the country always comes out on top.

Why?

If you had to put me on the spot, I think that’s what this book is about, rather than an actual parenting style. It’s more of how to be a decent person and pass that along to your kids.

While there are tips and strategies to use with young ones, the crux of it is still in the behaviour of the parents themselves. They break it down into the acronym parent, which overwhelmingly plays into my confirmation bias.

P – Play… which I wrote an article on Lifehack about here and was the main subject of my Master’s thesis.

A – Authenticity… wrote a few posts about that on this site here, here and here.

R – Reframing… take a moment before exploding on a situation and consider a new way to look at it. Here’s an example.

E – Empathy… you know, taking a look at the whole person and trying to understand their emotions and responding appropriately.

N – No Ultimatums… give respect, get respect and keep the bigger picture in mind.

T – Togetherness… spending quality time with your family in a cozy area, without screens — can you imagine?

The strength of this book is that it was originally self-published, which means there was no pressure from the authors to pad the chapters in order to hit a page count. It’s straight to the point and can easily be read in an afternoon.

If you’re not going to pick it up for parenting advice, it would still be good to read on what you could be doing in your own life.