About the Book
Customized Parenting is the ultimate guide for parents who want to feel calm, empowered, and joyful while navigating the ever-evolving journey of parenting.
Parents thrive when encouraged to explore their personal beliefs on parenting and tap into their deep well of wisdom. Author and parenting coach Bailey Gaddis will help parents discover their unique, effective, and sustainable parenting style so they can create a customized Parenting Plan that allows them to settle into and enjoy this intense time.
Once we identify the values we want our families to embody, and put them into words, we can parent from a place of confidence and empowerment, rather than exhaustion and frustration. And with the custom Parenting Plan the reader creates through the guidance in this book, they will relax into parenthood, develop mutual respect and boundaries with their child, and parent with intuitive knowledge and strength.
This Parenting Plan will bloom from the trifecta ofthereader's intuition, their family values, and research-based insights, providing them with clear, constructive methods for navigating everything from communication, emotional regulation, and boundaries to discipline, parent-child social life, and so much more.
Parenting is not static, and neither is your Parenting Plan: it's a living document designed to grow and change as children-and parents-evolve.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Seed of Your Plan
Discovering and Clarifying Your Parenting Values
Inviting Your Intuition On This Journey
The 11 Essential Elements of Parenting
Crafting a Family Communication Philosophy
Navigating All the Emotions
Building Healthy Boundaries
Exploring the Messy Art of Discipline
Discovering and Instilling Your Family Values
Navigating the Jungle of the Parent-Child Social Scene
Tackling Routines, Personal Hygiene, Potty Learning, and Safe Play
Encouraging Your Child to Eat More Than Dry Cereal
Fostering Quality, or at Least Good-Enough, Sleep
Parenting with Your People
Parenting Yourself
Putting It All Together
Acknowledgements
Index
About the Author :
Bailey Gaddis is the author of Asking for a Pregnant Friend: 101 Answers to Questions Women Are Too Embarrassed to Ask about Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood and Feng Shui Mommy: Creating Balance and Harmony for Blissful Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood. She is also a certified HypnoMothering parenting coach, certified hypnotherapist specializing in children and parents, certified birthing doula, and HypnoBirthing practitioner. She has written on parenting topics forWorking Mother, Fit Pregnancy, Pregnancy and Newborn, Babble, Elephant Journal, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Scary Mommy, Natural Solutions, Natural Mother, Your Tango, American Baby, Green Child, Huffington Post, and more. Gaddis also supports families navigating cancer and parenthood at the cancer resource center OjaiCARES. In addition, Gaddis volunteers for the Parent Care Program at the Nan Tolbert Nurturing Center where she offers in-home support to parents of newborn babies. She often stays involved with these families, who have limited supplemental support, offering her transition into toddlerhood guidance pro bono. She lives in Ojai, California, with her husband, son, and daughter.
Review :
"What I love about this book is how it meets mamas where they are—and guides us back to our own instincts with humor, heart, and zero judgment. It’s not about doing it right—it’s about doing it your way, with clarity and confidence." —Satya Twena, CEO and Founding Mama of We Are Amma
“Working Mother contributor Gaddis (Feng Shui Mommy) helps parents identify their child-rearing values in this instructive manual… Parents will find no shortage of worthwhile guidance here.” — Publishers Weekly
"“As parents we always wonder, are we doing a good job? But ‘parenting is not static, and neither is your Parenting Plan’ is the supportive, encouraging, and hopeful message that author Bailey Gaddis shares with her readers. As a mom of three kids, I wish I had this book at the beginning of my parenting journey, one that began over a decade ago. This informative and accessible book is filled with ideas and suggestions that all new parents (and perhaps even some seasoned ones) should use to help guide meaningful decisions that will impact your daily life. It provides innovative strategies for creating respectful and important boundaries with children, navigating social challenges like building relationships and bullying, and encourages readers to be confident, adaptable, and intuitive on their parenting journey.” —Rekha Rajan, author of The Read Aloud Factor
“If you’re hoping to discover your unique parenting style, Customized Parenting is your answer. Gaddis is the judgment-free, funny-but-real friend you want with you on the parenting journey, helping you create a practical parenting plan that is just right for your family.” —Meghan Rudd, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist
“Bailey is an extraordinary teacher and mother. While many offer theories on parenting, Bailey lives it—the proof is in her children, who are present, kind, curious, and deeply compassionate. Her approach is grounded in lived experience and humor, rooted in the belief that each parent must find their own authentic way while raising children with empathy and a sense of responsibility. Her teachings are remarkably accessible—and they work.” —Rachel Kolar McCord, integrative therapist, educator, and founder of The Veil and Mother Medicine
“Clears away all the mental clutter of parenting and offers a clear path parents can follow to create more intuitive, fulfilling, and effective parenting strategies. Gaddis has distilled an incredible collection of top child development and family research into easily digestible forms, making it easy for parents to become well-informed, without the overwhelm. This is the go-to guide for choosing your own adventure when raising humans, and having fun along the way.” —Katy Snow, PhD, research program in child development, University of Amsterdam
