Despite its inherent joys, the challenges of parenting can produce considerable stress. These challenges multiply-and the quality of parenting suffers-when a parent or child has mental health issues, or when parents are in conflict. Even under optimal circumstances, the constant changes as children develop can tax parents' inner resources, often undoing the best intentions and parenting courses.

Mindful Parenting: A Guide for Mental Health Practitioners offers an evidence-based, eight week structured mindfulness training program for parents with lasting benefits for parents and their children. Designed for use in mental health contexts, its methods are effective whether parents or children have behavioral or emotional issues. The program's eight sessions focus on mindfulness-oriented skills for parents, such as responding to (as opposed to reacting to) parenting stress, handling conflict with children or partners, fostering empathy, and setting limits. The book dovetails with other clinical mindfulness approaches, and is written clearly and accessibly so that professionals can learn the material easily and impart it to clients.

Featured in the text: 

• Detailed theoretical, clinical, and empirical foundations of the program.
• The complete Mindful Parenting manual with guidelines for eight sessions and a follow-up.
• Handouts and assignments for each session.
• Findings from clinical trials of the Mindful Parenting program.
• Perspectives from parents who have finished the course.

Its clinical focus and empirical support make Mindful Parenting an invaluable tool for practitioners and clinicians in child, school, and family psychology, psychotherapy/counseling, psychiatry, social work, and developmental psychology.

From the book reviews:

"Susan Bögels and Kathleen Restifo present a treatment based on ancient traditions to cultivate equanimity in the face of the unpredictable cacophony of modern life with children. ? Rooted in evidence-based practices and a solid research base, this book will guide therapists to help parents bring full awareness to raising children with compassion and wisdom. ? Bögels and Restifo's work will instantly become a trusted source for mindfulness teachers and mental health professionals, especially child and family therapists." (Shirley N. Pakdaman, Mindfulness, Vol. 5, 2014)

"It is an easy to read text including an 8 week Mindfulness Parenting course! This text is spot on. ? The Mindfulness Parenting Course is not presented as a mechanical program, but written in such a way as to give insight into the processes of the evolving group program. ? I would recommend this book to those who have already been exposed to evidence-based mindfulness approaches, andthose interesting in enhancing their parenting skills." (CouragePsyc, couragepsyc.blogspot.com.au, March, 2014)