Parenting Outside the Box

Where has the last month gone? Seriously... I feel like I just blogged last week, but that whole time and date stamp that goes along with this blogging program put things back into perspective for me. Wow!

I've been busy working on my book and trying to stay focused. Writing a book is certainly a challenge, to say the least. And I truly enjoy writing.

So, I've decided on my title, I believe: Parenting Outside the Box. My original working title was Parenting Beyond Behaviors and I just finished a DVD by that title. But the book has taken on a life of its own and needed a new name. I'm finding that it is quite fun to play with the idea of things being outside a box and our parenting ideas here are definitely outside the norm, even though they are much closer to the heart of our intuition than most of the parenting advice out there. Today I spent a big part of my day looking for a picture that would work for the cover of the book and for inspiration for me to pull everything together with the new name. I found one, but my husband thought that the boxes weren't in the middle enough or were too much on the outside. I'd love to hear what you think about it. Here's a link to the picture.

The book has three parts: Foundation of Relationships, Building and Maintenance of Relationships, and Repair of Relationships, though I'll probably come up with something "box" related for each section if I can. The beginning talks about what is really needed for a strong foundation, looking at attachment and brain development. The second section looks at ages and stages of development, focusing on emotional age, rather than chronological age. The third section looks at how to create or recreate connection in relationships when there has been an attachment break. Everything is very relationship-focused and is anything but the ordinary parenting information that only creates more disconnection.

Now to just figure out how to get the word out about the book! I'm thinking about offering free excerpts to get a preview of the book leading up to its release. What would help you to understand more about the book and how it would be helpful to you? What would you need to know? Please share your thoughts about it. I'm all ears!!

Thanks for listening. Next time, I'll get back to my regularly scheduled outside the box ideas about parenting. :-)