The Whole-Brain Child

Dan Siegel is one of the most influential interpersonal neurobiologists working today, and he writes for parents better than almost anyone. This book — co-written with developmental clinician Tina Payne Bryson — takes twelve neuroscience-informed strategies and makes them genuinely usable in the middle of a toddler meltdown or a tween outburst.

The "name it to tame it" technique alone is worth the price of the book: helping a child put words to a big feeling literally engages the prefrontal cortex and quiets the emotional centres of the brain. It's grounded in neuroscience but presented as something a tired parent can actually remember at 7pm on a Tuesday.

Bhavini draws on similar techniques in her parent consultations. This is the most common book we hand to parents whose child is "too emotional" — and we usually note that the child isn't the problem, the lagging brain-development is.