By Stephen C. Schultz
Parenting has never come with an instruction manual.
As children grow, families encounter new challenges involving communication, relationships, anxiety, technology, independence, emotional regulation, and simply figuring out how to help a child navigate an increasingly complicated world.
Over the years, I have spoken with many parents who were looking for more than a quick answer to a difficult parenting problem. Sometimes they wanted to better understand their child's behavior. Other times they wanted to improve communication, establish healthier boundaries, or simply find a different way of looking at a situation.
One of the resources I have found particularly helpful is a good book.
The right book cannot solve a family's problems, but it can provide a new perspective, introduce a useful skill, or reassure a parent that they are not alone.
With that in mind, I have compiled the following list of books that parents, families, and others may find helpful. Some are specifically about parenting, while others address relationships, emotional regulation, boundaries, trauma, resilience, communication, and personal growth.
There are many excellent books available, and this list is certainly not meant to be exhaustive. I hope you find something here that speaks to your particular situation.
Parenting and Adolescence
Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
Becky Kennedy
A compassionate, practical approach to parenting that emphasizes connection before correction. Dr. Becky Kennedy helps parents respond to difficult behavior while building emotional resilience, confidence, and stronger relationships with their children. The book also encourages parents to examine their own patterns and move away from shame and self-blame.
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents
Lisa Damour
A thoughtful guide to understanding the powerful emotions of adolescence. Damour helps parents distinguish normal teenage emotional development from situations that deserve greater concern, while offering practical ways to stay connected, communicate effectively, and help teenagers develop emotional skills.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Jonathan Haidt
Examines the dramatic changes in childhood brought about by smartphones, social media, reduced opportunities for independent play, and increased adult supervision. Haidt offers parents practical ideas for creating healthier boundaries around technology and giving children more opportunities to develop independence, resilience, and real-world connections.
Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School
Michelle Icard
A practical guide for parents of tweens and young teenagers who want to keep communication open as their children become more independent. Icard focuses on important conversations about friendships, sexuality, technology, body image, independence, and other challenges while providing strategies for talking without shutting down communication.
8 Setbacks That Can Make a Child a Success: What to Do and What to Say to Turn "Failures" into Character-Building Moments
Michelle Icard
Helps parents rethink the mistakes, failures, and poor decisions their children inevitably make. Rather than immediately rescuing or fixing the problem, Icard shows parents how to use setbacks as opportunities for developing responsibility, character, resilience, and better decision-making.
The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives
William Stixrud, Ph.D., and Ned Johnson
Encourages parents to move away from micromanaging their children's lives and toward giving them appropriate control and responsibility. The authors explore stress, motivation, anxiety, sleep, technology, and the importance of helping children develop an internal sense of control rather than relying on parents to manage everything for them.
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)
Philippa Perry
A thoughtful examination of how our own childhood experiences influence the way we parent. Perry encourages parents to become more aware of their emotional reactions, improve communication, repair relationships after conflict, and break unhealthy patterns that can be passed from one generation to another.
Parenting with Love and Logic
Foster Cline and Jim Fay
A parenting approach that emphasizes empathy, appropriate choices, natural consequences, and responsibility. The goal is to raise self-confident, motivated children who are prepared to make decisions and deal with the real world.
Parenting Teens with Love and Logic: Preparing Teens for Responsible Adulthood
Foster Cline and Jim Fay
Offers parents practical strategies for setting limits while allowing teenagers to experience appropriate responsibility and consequences. The approach encourages decision-making and prepares teens for greater independence.
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child
John Gottman
A guide to helping children understand, express, and regulate their emotions. Gottman introduces the concept of "emotion coaching" and explains how parents can use everyday experiences to help children develop emotional intelligence.
How to Really Love Your Child
Ross Campbell
Dr. D. Ross Campbell explores the emotional needs of children and provides parents with practical skills for helping children feel loved, accepted, and understood. The book discusses physical touch, discipline, affirmation, and emotional connection.
The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
Wendy Mogel
Applies principles drawn from Jewish wisdom to the challenge of raising children who are self-reliant, compassionate, responsible, and ethical. The book encourages parents to resist the temptation to remove every difficulty or disappointment from their children's lives.
Communication, Relationships, and Boundaries
I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better
Gary and Joy Lundberg
Helps parents and others let go of the no-win role of "fixer" and instead empower people to solve their own problems. The authors emphasize validation, listening, and allowing others to experience the natural process of working through their own challenges. These principles can improve relationships with partners, children, colleagues, and friends.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself
Nedra Glover Tawwab
A practical guide to understanding and establishing healthy boundaries in relationships. Tawwab explains how to communicate needs, say no, manage difficult relationships, and stop patterns of overextending ourselves for others. Particularly useful for parents who struggle to distinguish between being supportive and taking responsibility for someone else's emotions or choices.
The Lost Art of Listening
Michael P. Nichols
Provides practical techniques and exercises for becoming a better listener. The book explores why people often fail to listen effectively and offers strategies for improving communication, particularly during difficult conversations.
When I Say No, I Feel Guilty
Manuel J. Smith
A classic guide to assertiveness that teaches readers how to communicate their needs, establish boundaries, and say no without being overwhelmed by guilt.
Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and How You Can Make Yours Last
John Gottman
Examines the patterns that influence marital relationships and provides practical strategies for identifying problems, strengthening communication, and improving the quality and longevity of a marriage.
Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
The Arbinger Institute
Encourages readers to look beyond self-justifying reactions and preconceived ideas when dealing with conflict. The book explores how our view of other people can influence the way we behave toward them and offers a different way of approaching difficult relationships.
Leadership and Self-Deception
The Arbinger Institute
Through a relatable story about a man facing challenges at work and at home, the authors explore the ways people can become blind to their own motivations and unintentionally contribute to the problems they are trying to solve. The book offers a valuable perspective on relationships, conflict, and personal responsibility.
Emotional Health, Resilience, and Personal Growth
The DBT Workbook for Overcoming Depression
Thomas Marra
Provides step-by-step exercises, techniques, and worksheets designed to help readers identify painful emotional patterns and develop healthier ways of responding to depression, anxiety, and difficult emotions.
Don't Let Emotions Run Your Life
Scott E. Spradlin
A workbook based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) that provides practical strategies for managing painful emotions, reducing emotional reactivity, and developing greater emotional balance.
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Susan Jeffers
Provides practical techniques for facing fear and moving beyond patterns of avoidance and passivity. Jeffers encourages readers to challenge negative thinking and develop greater confidence when confronting difficult situations.
The Knight in Rusty Armor
Robert Fisher
Fiction
A knight discovers that the armor he has worn for so long has become stuck. His journey to remove it becomes a metaphor for self-discovery, emotional growth, and learning to become more authentic.
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
Harold S. Kushner
A thoughtful exploration of the questions, doubts, and fears that can arise when tragedy strikes. Kushner offers perspective and consolation for people struggling to understand suffering and circumstances beyond their control.
Principle-Centered Leadership
Stephen R. Covey
A long-term, inside-out approach to developing people and organizations. Covey explores how personal principles, character, relationships, and leadership affect the quality of our professional and personal lives.
Letting Go of Shame
John Bradshaw
Explores the impact of shame on self-image, relationships, and emotional well-being. Bradshaw provides strategies for recognizing unhealthy shame and moving toward greater self-acceptance and emotional health.
Codependency and Difficult Relationships
Codependent No More
Melody Beattie
A straightforward guide to understanding codependency and developing healthier relationships. The book explores patterns of taking excessive responsibility for other people's problems and offers a path toward greater independence, healing, and emotional freedom.
Stop Walking on Eggshells
Paul T. Mason and Randi Kreger
Helps readers understand borderline personality disorder and provides practical guidance for establishing boundaries and responding to destructive relationship patterns. The book can be particularly useful for family members who feel as though they are constantly trying to avoid conflict.
I Hate You, Don't Leave Me
Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus
Provides an introduction to borderline personality disorder and explores the intense emotions, relationship difficulties, and behavioral patterns associated with the condition.
Trauma, Adoption, and Family History
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
Sherrie Eldridge
Explores the complex emotional experiences that adopted children may carry with them. The book provides adoptive parents with insight into issues surrounding identity, loss, attachment, belonging, and the child's need to have his or her experiences understood.
Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control
Heather T. Forbes and Karen L. Post
Explores the effects of trauma on children's emotional and behavioral responses. The authors encourage parents to look beyond traditional discipline approaches and consider how fear, stress, and trauma may influence a child's behavior.
Silent Sons
Robert J. Ackerman
Explores the experiences of men who grew up in families affected by alcoholism. Ackerman encourages readers to address anger, shame, and unresolved family experiences while developing healthier ways of relating to themselves and others.
Perfect Daughters
Robert J. Ackerman
Examines the experiences of daughters who grew up with alcoholism in the family. The book explores patterns of taking responsibility for other people's problems and provides strategies for developing healthier relationships and a stronger sense of self.
Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction
Patrick J. Carnes
Explores the warning signs, dynamics, and consequences associated with compulsive sexual behavior. The book also addresses the impact on partners and family members and emphasizes that recovery is possible.
Attention, Parenting Perspectives, and Family Life
Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception
Thom Hartmann
Offers an alternative perspective on ADHD and explores theories about how differences in attention and behavior can be understood. The book encourages readers to consider the strengths as well as the challenges associated with attention differences.
The Price of Privilege
Madeline Levine
Examines the pressures experienced by children growing up in affluent and achievement-oriented environments. Levine explores how well-intentioned parenting, excessive pressure, and an emphasis on achievement can interfere with healthy emotional development.
The Ultimate Gift
Jim Stovall
Fiction
What would you do to inherit a million dollars? Would you be willing to change your life? This inspirational story explores responsibility, hard work, relationships, gratitude, and self-realization.
A Few Final Thoughts
No book can replace professional help when a child or family is facing significant emotional, behavioral, or mental health challenges. Sometimes, however, finding the right book at the right moment can provide a new perspective, a useful skill, or simply the reassurance that you are not alone.
Parenting rarely comes with easy answers. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is slow down, listen, learn something new, and remember that we don't have to have everything figured out at once.
I hope you find something on this list that helps.
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