Imperfect Parenting

This book presents a model of authoritative parenting that makes room for imperfection, focusing on the skills needed to build a strong parent-child relationship.

As parents, we often worry we’re making the wrong decisions. The good news is, having a strong relationship with your child means you can make a parenting blunder from time to time, and exercise grace and patience to try again.

Written for parents of children from birth to young adulthood (ages 0-24), this book helps you examine your role as a guide, cheerleader, advocate, and most importantly, as a human being who doesn’t always have the right answers. While your child’s brain, body, emotions, and social abilities develop over time, author Dona Matthews shows how your skills as a parent can be developed too, by practicing relationship fundamentals such as acceptance, positivity, social support, boundaries, respect, self-care, and gratitude.

Rooted in the latest findings from neuroscience and psychology, this book presents a model of authoritative parenting that embraces imperfection. Each chapter focuses on a key relationship skill for parenting, with tips on how to practice it during different stages of your child’s growth and in common stressful situations such as social, school, health, and family scenarios.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

• Chapter 1. Who Are You As a Parent?
• Chapter 2. How Human Beings Make Mistakes, Fix Them, and Grow
• Chapter 3. Accept and Be Mindful: Take a Breath, You Are Enough
• Chapter 4. Care For Yourself, and You'll Help Your Child Care for Themself
• Chapter 5. Each of Us Is Unique: Brain-Building Together
• Chapter 6. Don't Stop Learning: You Can Keep Getting Smarter
• Chapter 7. Nurture Your Creativity and Creative Self-Expression
• Chapter 8. Choose Love, Positivity, Caring, and Connection
• Chapter 9. Be the Adult in the Room: Not Perfect, But Wise
• Chapter 10. We're All in This Together: Listen, Connect, and Collaborate

Notes
Additional Resources
Index
About the Author

Dona Matthews, PhD, has worked with children, families, and schools since 1990, and is currently in private practice in Toronto, Canada. She was executive director, Millennium Dialogue on Early Child Development, University of Toronto, and founding director, Hunter College Center for Gifted Studies and Education, City University of New York.

She has published widely on child and adolescent development, education, and supporting special needs. She frequently shares with parents ways to practice love and respect during each phase of their child’s development, learning and growing alongside their children.

Follow Dr. Matthews at her Psychology Today blog, “Going Beyond Intelligence.”opens in new window

This is far and away the best parenting book I have ever read, and I have read hundreds of them. Imperfect Parenting has a solid science base, but it’s not for eggheads; it’s for real parents who have real kids. Dona Matthews’s message reassures anyone who is a parent or hopes to become one: Building a relationship with your child will bring you the confidence to face any parenting challenge, and your love for each other will just keep on growing. Your child will thank you.
—Terrie Moffitt, PhD, Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States; coauthor of The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life

Imperfect Parenting is brimming with life-changing insights. Dona Matthews, with compassionate and incisive expertise, distills the latest research into understandable tips and tools that can help any parent. But perhaps more important, she outlines a new approach to parenting that will make us more effective as parents and strengthen our relationships with our children. Dr. Matthews does this by combating the punishingly perfectionistic culture around parenting today that tells us that, unless we’ve checked every box on the “good parenting checklist,” we have failed. Imperfect Parenting instead empowers parents to embrace imperfection constructively, and approach every challenge with renewed confidence and hope.
—Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, PhD, Professor of Psychology, The City University of New York, New York, NY, United States; author of Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad)

Imperfect Parenting is a treasure, filled with cutting-edge parenting advice backed by solid research and Dona Matthews’s many years of experience supporting families. This book shows how parents and everyone involved in a child’s life can build or rebuild a strong relationship, which is the ultimate foundation of optimal emotional health.
—Mona Delahooke, PhD, author of Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior; Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids; and Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioral Challenges

Imperfect Parenting covers a wealth of practical information, from advice for healthy eating and sleep to suggestions for how parents can engage with the cognitive, academic, social, and emotional aspects of their children’s development. It is written in a warm, caring way with supportive tips for parents in taking care of themselves as well as their child. Insights from the author’s clinical practice are well integrated with research-based conclusions. The book affirms the message that responsive, loving care is more important for children’s development than any specific parenting dos or don’ts.
—Jennifer Lansford, PhD, Research Professor, Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States

Dona Matthews tackles both difficult and mundane problems of parenting with loving yet practical guidance that is grounded in evidence. I would recommend this book to new parents, those feeling overwhelmed by daily struggles with offspring, and teachers who wonder how classroom behaviors relate to what children may be experiencing at home.
—Rena F. Subotnik, PhD, Director, APA Center for Psychology in Schools and Education, Washington, DC, United States

All parents, both new and experienced, will benefit from reading this compassionate guide to the art and science of parenting. Dona Matthews uses stories and case studies to illuminate the research behind building successful, protective relationships with children. Imperfect Parenting is a highly relatable and ultimately forgiving handbook that gives us permission to learn from our mistakes as we help our children develop into the best versions of themselves.
—Nancy Steinhauer, Principal, The Mabin School, Canada’s First Independent Ashoka Changemaker School, Toronto, ON, Canada; coauthor of Pushing the Limits: How Schools Can Prepare Our Children Today for the Challenges of Tomorrow

Dona Matthews shows how parents who learn to respect their children’s uniqueness, and relate to them with understanding and compassion, form strong connections that support them in becoming themselves. She describes how neuroscience and psychology inform the relationship skills that lead to easier and happier family relationships, as they support children’s diversity and growth.
—Nicole A. Tetreault, PhD, Neuroscientist; author of Insight Into a Bright Mind: A Neuroscientist’s Personal Stories of Unique Thinking

Dona Matthews describes the wonder, joys, and challenges of parenting. Get set to be informed and energized by the riveting stories of families’ circumstances, the array of helpful resources, and the author’s insightful and practical suggestions for embracing the many experiences of raising children from infancy to adulthood. Imperfect Parenting is destined to be a classic!
—Joanne Foster, EdD, award-winning author, and specialist in gifted education