The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did): THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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In The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad that You Did), renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry shows how strong and loving bonds are made with your children and how such attachments give a better chance of good mental health, in childhood and beyond. I could be wrong: maybe it has affected me, maybe I wouldn’t have such great fashion sense if he was normcore, but I’ll never know. The only marked difference growing up was that my house had a better collection of face glitter than most. Many experiments have been done which illustrate that old people are generally more content than younger people. We are more content because as we begin to get closer to the end of our life, we don’t focus as much on the future as we do when we are young and have so much future ahead to think about. We live in the present and make the most out of every day, because we know those days are limited. This is a lesson for all of us, to live more in the present moment, rather than in what has already happened or has yet to happen.

The great thing is that this is an exciting journey of uncertainty and curiosity. We might be surprised by what we discover. I think about this with regards to a letter I received from a trainee doctor. Aku pribadi belajar banyak sekali dari buku ini. Alasannya sederhana. I want to treat my partner (& people around me) better. Apa yg ditulis oleh Perry dengan "children", aku ubah menjadi "partner." Membayangkan bagaimana menjadi individu yang merupakan "emotional container", suportif, & menerapkan "rupture & repair." Menjadi manusia yg hangat & tidak menyakiti orang lain. Memutus rantai kekerasan (verbal dan/atau fisik).When I try to discuss it with my dad, he says he would be “disappointed because I like telling people you are a teacher”. I have asked my own children about what they would like to do when they are grown-up and maybe I’ve unintentionally shown more approval when they lean towards something professional, but I now realise that all I want is for them to be happy. So, how do I find the courage to just be me, without a label? And how do I instil this in my daughters? Old people are generally more content than young people because they live in the present’: Philippa wears sculptural art dress by a-jane.com, maxi shirt dress by karenmillen.com and her own spectacles. Photograph: Stephanie Sian Smith

How to be Sane written by Philippa Perry is a short, and surprisingly a good book to read. This book is a part of The School of Life series which takes a different approach to introduce self-help genre, in an intelligent way. Philippa Perry is psychotherapist and in this book she offers some pragmatic insight on observing one's attitude, reactions or thought process. She argues that there are four cornerstones to being sane, to being conscious. Self-observation is one, other being your relationship with others (Man is a social being ~ Seneca), the Good Stress & our own perspective. Styling by Jo Jones; hair and makeup by Juliana Sergot using skincare by Dermalogica & Bumble & Bumble; fashion assistant Sam Deaman; photographer’s assistant Gabor Herczegfalvi Children are not problems to be fixed’ … a trip to the naughty step. Photograph: Elva Etienne/Getty Images It’s after I have eaten my avocado (drizzled in olive oil), that I ask how she equipped Flo to deal with any negative comments about Grayson being a transvestite.At university I studied chemistry, but never loved it. Then,
in my fourth year, I gave the editor of the student newspaper some quotes for the feminism society while I was drunk and
he thought I was funny, so he offered me a column. That’s when I found a hobby that I loved enough to make my job.

This probably means paying as much attention to scheduling fun as we do to scheduling our work. As the great violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin said: “Anything that one wants to do really, and one loves doing, one must do every day. It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird. And you can’t imagine a bird saying, ‘Well, I’m tired today, I’m not going to fly.’” In this warm, practical and witty book, No.1 Sunday Times bestselling psychotherapist Philippa Perry shows you how to approach life's big problems. I found my mum’s work as a psychotherapist interesting, but again, I also saw the downsides: taking on everyone else’s pain and having people rely so much on you. I wanted
a job I didn’t have to take home, one that didn’t define my life. We didn’t. When you are born into a family, that family is normal. Grayson doesn’t dress up as a woman all the time; most of the time he’s in an overall covered in dust, which might not be normal to other families, either. When he won the Turner Prize, a journalist asked Flo, then aged 10 – and without an adult present – ‘What it’s like to have a dad who’s a transvestite?’ and she said: ‘Well, how would I know? I’ve never had any other sort of dad.’” I tell Perry I wish my parents had had this philosophy. They had never experienced bullying and just laughed it off when I told them.This book is about how we have relationships with our children, what gets in the way of a good connection and what can enhance it Perry shrugs – this is all work that she has undertaken herself. She has been facing up to the way she was parented since the age of 12. Her family was “good, kind, middle-class”, but raised children the way you’d “train a dog, with punishment rather than encouragement”. Ultimately, this damaged the young, sensitive Perry, and led her into therapy, and eventually a career in mental health. 'My parents didn’t comfort children because they thought children would just want to be upset more' We are more than merely a role – a doctor, teacher, girlfriend, father or whatever else. Don’t let the idea of the role, and the meanings you make around that role, obliterate you as a person. The people around us don’t just want someone playing a part – they need a real person to relate to. Be curious about whether your desires are internally or externally referenced. Dig into what the willpower subpersonality part of you wants and why, and what that inner rebel part of you wants as well. We don’t have to choose between head and heart, we can have both. Our head can listen to our heart and take it into consideration when making, or not making, decisions. Jelas sekali yang dititikberatkan oleh Perry sepanjang buku ini adalah tentang bagaimana kita merawat hubungan dengan diri kita sendiri. Tips dan latihan yang diberikan juga mengenai memfokuskan pikiran tentang kita. Membatasi konsumsi berita dan mendorong diri untuk mencoba hal baru adalah salah dua dari saran yang diberikan Perry agar manusia bisa berfungsi maksimal meskipun keadaan sedang tidak baik-baik saja.

All this mirroring and validating of feelings that I’m doing – wouldn’t it be great if the parents did it themselves?’: Philippa Perry. Photograph: Pal Hansen/The Observer Most comforting are the repeated reassurances in this book not to despair if you feel your parenting doesn’t measure up. Most things can be fixed. “It’s like monsters under the bed,” she tells me. “Children can’t articulate it. The monster might actually be: ‘I know I’m going to be alone now and I’m very scared about that,’ or ‘I’m sensing you’re irritated and I’m seeing that as a monster.’ So, rather than think: ‘I’ve all those invoices to finish off before bed,’ we’ve got to say: ‘This is more important. I’ll stay with you till you’re asleep.’ But what I really want to say is, we’re all bad parents. We all do our best and make mistakes. You can make amends. It’s not the mistakes we make that matter so much as putting them right. So, if we have dismissed the monsters under the bed, in the morning we can always ask: ‘How are your monsters by the way?’” I wanted to rate it highly but I just found it so dull. Is it the book I wish my parents had read? Probably but they wouldn’t have given a toss and would have considered it rubbish anyway. There was nothing groundbreaking. It was simply a reflection on conscious parenting. Meeting your kids, treating them with respect, compassionate and empathy. At times it felt very shaming and confronting - mainly because I know I didn’t meet my kids how I wish I had as a parent when the older two were toddlers. That is wholly a me problem, but I felt like I was falling asleep reading half of it, the rest of the time having to sit with feelings of failing. It did reassure the reader that it was NOT intended this way, and that there was almost always a chance of repair. I certainly feel, through engaging this style of parenting now as I’ve grown into myself, that I’ve repaired the parts I got wrong and I think the biggest part of that, which is alluded to in the book; is being accountable, aware and not trying to “win”. There were some useful bits, especially if you’re new to parenting in this style. I also think it is a book for people with little ones, not who have much older kids. It has chapters on sleeping, weaning, toddlers and then moves onto older kids.I just didn’t think it was for me at all. Great advice I agree with as a parent trying to break a toxic cycle, but presented in very dull and monotonous format that just felt like reading psychology papers. I also think some of it felt a little out of touch in places - suggesting family could pay rent for you to be present with your child? Asking you to spend a weekend in a hotel with your child one to one? I appreciate the context in which this was suggested, but it felt like it came from a place of privilege and would perhaps feel out of reach for a lot of people. This has genuinely had such a positive impact on my life and my relationship with my daughter' Josh Widdicombe Earlier, Perry recounts discovering Flo, then a pre-schooler, admonishing her teddy bear over and over. It turned out a boy had pushed her over at nursery, and a teacher had advised her to say: “No, stop it. I don’t like that,” so Flo was practising on her toy. Get closer the people who matter the most with the help of the nation's favourite therapist, PHILIPPA PERRY **