With so many marriage books out there, how do you know which books to choose from?

Last month I wrote a post asking you about what marriage books changed your life. I mentioned in the post that two and half years ago I wrote a post about the premarital books I recommend to couples.

“There lies within the heart of most human beings a deep longing for close companionship with another–one who like us, yet mysteriously and sometimes maddeningly different from us. That heartfelt urge has been there from the beginning, and most of us feel it long before we’re aware of our sexuality.” (pp. 9) Those are the […]

So I had no idea that when I set out to do a blog series about The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson — that I would write 20 posts on the topic. But that’s exactly what happened. And that’s how my brain […]

We’ve come to the final strategy in The Whole-Brain Child book by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, and I really love how they ended the book. I love it because it really resonates with the marital work that I do and stressing the importance of this ‘we.’ At The Hideaway Experience marriage intensives in […]

“The brain is a social organ, made to be in relationship. It’s hardwired to take in signals from the social environment, which in turn influence a person’s inner world. In other words, what happens between brains has a great deal to do with what happens within each individual brain. Self and community are fundamentally interrelated, […]

Earlier in Chapter 5 of The Whole-Brain Child, authors Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson talked a lot about awareness and helping a child stay in their hub, where they have the ability to bring awareness to what they focus on. From that central place (i.e. hub), a child can with intention look out at […]

Let’s be honest, sometimes I just don’t know the right questions to ask my kids when I want to better understand what they are feeling. Heck, many times I don’t know what I’m feeling myself so it’s hard to elicit a response from others, especially our kids. In situations like this, it’s helpful to have […]

“It’s very important that kids learn about and understand their feelings. But it’s also true that feelings need to be recognized for what they are: temporary, changing conditions. They are states, not traits…… So we have to help them understand that feelings are temporary–on average, an emotion comes and goes in ninety seconds. If we […]

I am a talker. I talk and talk and talk. Just ask my wife. Maybe it’s because I sit and listen all day to others talk. But really, I have always been a talker. I remember as a little kid talking to my mom and dad endlessly. In fact, I have one memory of driving […]

Have you ever noticed how much your children love telling stories? My daughter and son love telling me stories about their adventures each day, whether it be an activity my daughter did during P.E., or my son talking to me about a crash he had on his scooter. It seems that telling stories helps us […]

“Daddy, I want to run!” That was the phrase that came out of my son’s mouth before we played the above game of chase on the beach…and this has been his repeated phrase of the last couple of months. It began on our 15.5 hour road trip to Florida. A road trip that I thought […]

This last week we talked about the importance of integrating the upstairs brain with the downstairs brain, and strategy #4 continues with along this same theme. I love the idea in The Whole-Brain Child that “The upstairs brain is like a muscle; when it gets used, it develops, gets stronger, and performs better. And when […]

I’ve been talking a lot about the brain in my blog series on The Whole-Brain Child, so I thought it would be helpful to see a simple presentation by Dr. Dan Siegel where he presents a hand model of the brain. I think this will be especially helpful in light of my post on the […]

Have you ever found yourself in the unenviable position of trying to rationalize and negotiate with your toddler who is having an emotional meltdown? All hands should go up. I mean how many of us haven’t found ourselves desperately trying to stave off a meltdown in the grocery store before we can make it to […]

I often get asked about the marriage books I would recommend for couples to read. In this series I will discuss the ten books that I recommend on marriage.

Last week I posted on Strategy #2 of The Whole-Brain Child, which is Name it to Tame It: Telling Stories to Calm Big Emotions. But since I posted that blog I’ve had a few people ask me if I could expound on this strategy in more detail by giving an example. As I looked back […]

This is the 7th post in my ongoing series on the book, The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. Today we look at strategy #2.

My wife Heather and I often look at things from a very different perspective. It’s not surprising that opposites attract, but sometimes those opposites can begin to push people in two different directions. It didn’t take us very long into our dating life to realize that my wife seems to naturally operate out of the […]

  Integrated: to make into a whole by bringing all parts together; unify. When things become integrated, is simply known as integration. In the Whole-Brain Child by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, this process refers to a child’s ability to integrate the varying parts of the brain that we discussed in an earlier post. […]