Family Development

Strengthening your own foundation is one of the very best beginnings you can give your child. In The Mindful Mom-to-Be, doula and pregnancy coach Lori Bregman guides you in your journey toward motherhood by empowering you to find what works best for you and your baby. In addition to concrete, prescriptive health information, including nutritional advice, natural remedies, developmental milestones, and techniques for labor, she offers simple and enjoyable spiritual and emotional exercises to help you prepare for motherhood.

Healthy boundaries. We all know we should have them - in order to achieve work/life balance, cope with toxic people, and enjoy rewarding relationships with partners, friends, and family. But what do "healthy boundaries" really mean - and how can we successfully express our needs, say "no", and be assertive without offending others? Licensed counselor, sought-after relationship expert, and one of the most influential therapists on Instagram Nedra Glover Tawwab demystifies this complex topic for today's world.

Each time she knelt to "catch" another wriggling baby - nearly 3,000 times during her remarkable career - California midwife Peggy Vincent paid homage to the moment when pain bows to joy and the world makes way for one more. With every birth, she encounters another woman-turned-goddess: Catherine rides out her labor in a car careening down a mountain road. Sofia spends hers trying to keep her hyper doctor-father from burning down the house. Susannah gives birth so quietly that neither husband nor midwife notice until there's a baby in the room.

Have the day-to-day realities of being a dad and husband left you frustrated or worn out? You're not alone. Jerrad Lopes felt that way too...until he started blogging about his struggles and discovered thousands of other men who want to be good husbands and fathers but don't know where to start. You will learn that spiritual leaders realize their story isn't the story - it's all about Jesus; point their wives, children, community, and world toward God; stumble their way through spiritual leadership rather than doing nothing; and seek humility rather than strive for perfection.

When your baby dies, you find yourself in a life you never expected. And even though pregnancy and infant loss are common, they're not common to you. Instead, you feel like a stranger in your own body, surrounded by well-meaning people who often don't know how to support you. In Unexpecting, bereaved mom Rachel Lewis is the friend you never knew you'd need, walking you through the unique grief of baby loss. When nothing about life after loss makes sense...this book will.

The Deerslayer is the first of the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper. Here we meet Natty Bumppo as a young man living in upstate New York in the early 1740s. The action begins as Bumppo, called "Deerslayer", and his friend Hurry Harry approach Lake Glimmerglass, or Oswego, where the trapper Thomas Hutter lives with his daughters, the beautiful Judith and the feeble-minded Hetty. Hutter's floating log fort is attacked by Iroquois Indians, and the two frontiersmen join in the fight.

When it comes to the unknown territory of having a baby, moms to be have nearly unending resources to plan and execute a healthy pregnancy and navigate those first months and years as a parent with confidence. New dads? Not so much. They want to get in the game, too, but, says Super Bowl champion Benjamin Watson, "I could find clearer directions for putting together a baby swing than for taking care of a newborn child." The New Dad's Playbook is every man's game plan to being the best partner and the best father.

If you are preparing for pregnancy, are pregnant or have just delivered, Pregnancy Notes has got you covered. Rujuta Diwekar takes you through the journey, with tips for even before you get pregnant till after you deliver your bundle of joy. Each stage includes notes on food, exercise and recovery. Also included are heritage recipes from across the country, so you can mine the wisdom of our grandmothers. This is a must-have guide for every woman.

Babies don't automatically know how to sleep through the night; they need to be taught. The Sears family has learned from decades of pediatric practice, bolstered by their own parenting experiences, that different babies have different nighttime temperaments - and, of course, different families have different lifestyles. Instead of espousing the kind of "one method fits all" approach advocated in other baby sleep guides, the Sears family explains how you can create a sleep plan that suits the needs of your entire family.

Over time, the business of life creeps in and even the most deeply committed couples can feel like they're living parallel lives rather than enjoying life together. Their once happily-ever-after can quickly turn into an endless grind of work, chores, errands, and carpool. And the pull of social media becomes more compelling than engaging with one's spouse. In this book, Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley offer practical ways to rekindle the passionate, intimate, heart-to-heart spark of connection between husbands and wives.

This powerful book, based on cutting-edge research and cognitive behavioral strategies, will help you develop the know-how to effectively manage teen anxiety. You'll learn the best ways to support your teen in overcoming problematic thinking and fears, discover what behaviors and coping strategies unwittingly make anxiety worse, and understand how anxiety is best defeated with surprisingly counterintuitive methods.

Based partly on the author's experience, partly on her in-depth interviews, and partly on a questionnaire she developed with psychologist Holly Barrett to which almost 600 women responded, Father Loss provides the clearest portrait yet of a very special group of women. As a group, they express their insecurities ("Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to love a man totally...because that would mean I didn't love my father anymore." - Leslie).

Leading medical innovator Kenneth Bock, MD, has helped change the lives of more than 1,000 children, and in this important book he offers help to children everywhere. This is the book that finally puts hope within reach. Doctors have generally overlooked the connections among the 4-A disorders, despite their concurrent rise and the presence of many medical clues.

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them. Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans.

After her father's sudden death, Alexandra Fuller realizes that if she is going to weather his loss, she will need to become the parts of him she misses most. So begins Travel Light, Move Fast, the unforgettable story of Tim Fuller, a self-exiled British black sheep who moved to Africa to fight in the Rhodesian War before settling as a banana farmer in Zambia. A man who preferred chaos to predictability and was more afraid of becoming bored than of getting lost, he taught his daughters to live as if everything needed to happen altogether, all at once - or not at all.

Plagued by the suicides of both his siblings, heir to alcohol and drug abuse, divorce and economic ruin, James Brown lived a life clouded by addiction, broken promises and despair. In The Los Angeles Diaries, he reveals his struggle for survival, mining his past to present the inspiring story of his redemption. Beautifully written and limned with dark humor, these 12 deeply confessional, interconnected chapters address personal failure, heartbreak, the trials of writing for Hollywood, and the life-shattering events that finally convinced Brown that he must "change or die".

Through compelling true stories and solid principles, this book offers a blueprint for what sons need from their moms to become healthy, caring, confident young men. With specific advice for boys' different ages, moms will learn the balance between controlling and letting go, how to cultivate their sons' unique masculinity, how to encourage a lasting relationship with God, and much more.

Parenting is hard. That's why self-compassion is so important. In this empathetic resource, mindfulness expert and psychologist Susan M. Pollak helps you let go of constant self-judgment and treat yourself with the same kindness and caring you strive to offer your kids. Simple, yet powerful, guided meditation techniques (most under three minutes long) are easy to practice while doing the dishes, driving to work, or soothing a fussy baby. Learn to respond to your own imperfections like a supportive friend, not a harsh critic.

As a research neuroscientist, Lise Eliot has made the study of the human brain her life's work. But it wasn't until she was pregnant with her first child that she became intrigued with the study of brain development. She wanted to know precisely how the baby's brain is formed, and when and how each sense, skill, and cognitive ability is developed. And most importantly, she was interested in finding out how her role as a nurturer can affect this complex process.

Wilder's stories consistently explored the connections between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, always returning to fundamental questions about the meaning of life. This Pulitzer Prize-winning tale concerns the lives of five people who fall to their deaths from a Peruvian rope bridge in 1714. A humble Franciscan, Brother Juniper, witnesses the accident and determines to learn about the lives of the victims in order to find out whether this accident happened by chance or by plan.