Parenting Mindfully

More than ever, life in our world, nation, and communities appears insecure and unpredictable. Every day, new and disturbing incidents appear on the news that feed this sense of unrest. In our communities, people don’t attempt to understand one another’s points of view, causing compromise to give way to discord and conflict. This unremitting stress filters down to the way we raise our children and the way our kids respond to accepting the values we work hard to impart.Parenting Mindfully helps you provide your children with a buffer against the challenges they face at home, in school, and in the neighborhood. Following the principles of Mindfulness can help you raise kids who become school smart, street smart, caring human beings. If you want to promote character traits like compassion, kindness, and respect for you and others, using Mindfulness techniques will jumpstart these positive qualities in your children. Imagine what it would be like if you could begin to find a way to parent your kids successfully despite the growing negativity in the world. Parenting Mindfully can help both you and your kids discover a new and rewarding way of living.

Communication between parents and their children is a key component of successful parenting.  Dr. DePino makes a huge contribution to this effort by providing a litany of specific techniques, strategies, and concrete examples of how to foster an effective communicative family experience. Dr. DePino’s carefully constructed parenting text is a virtual handbook of recipes for child-rearing and for promoting successful intra-family relationships.  Each strategy and suggested behavior speaks directly to help so many specific issues that often arise in any family dynamic. The practices offered in this book appear to run the gamut of situations, problems and issues that might confront any parenting adventure.  Dr. DePino offers an innovative yet pragmatic approach for a successful resolution of the problems that concern many parents., DePino covers all bases in her parenting book by including segments on how to bolster confidence in kids, encourage responsible behavior, motivate excellence, teach coping skills, and discipline wisely and compassionately. The principles of Mindfulness permeate all of the anecdotes about issues that every parent encounters such as kids’ preoccupation with electronic devices, respect for parents and other authority figures, and dealing with conflicts at home and school. While reinforcing important parenting skills in a practical, user-friendly manner, the author stresses Mindfulness techniques such as mindful listening and talking, assertive communication, and loving kindness to help parents communicate better with their kids and to help families live more happily and harmoniously. As the author states in her introduction: ‘If you incorporate Mindfulness into your daily dealings with your children, it’s highly likely they’ll turn out to be smart, caring, and responsible kids who know how to deal with all the problems that come their way.’

Catherine DePino, Ed.D, has sold fifteen books for parents, teachers, and children to mainstream publishers; her books address bullying, grammar and writing, spirituality, women's issues, and prayer. For many years, she worked as a teacher, department head, and disciplinarian in the Philadelphia School District, and subsequently worked at Temple as an adjunct assistant professor and student teaching supervisor.