There are lots of things to learn when raising a kid. With so many information and advices from Internet nowadays, I feel like books at least provide a systematic view instead of just random tips. So here is another book about raising a kid, when my daughter is approaching the age of three.

From my own experience, children at age two to three can be really a conflicted and confusing creature. They can be happy at one moment and melt down at the next moment. By reading this book, just knowing the challenges I’m facing are not unique is a big comfort and makes it easier to focus on the problem solving part instead of the emotion part.

When reading it, I believe more that raising a kid is more like an art than a science, which I wrote in a previous blog. But you need to at least understand the science part in order to master the art. The first half of the book covers the basics of child development, such as how children think at this stage (even though it’s a little bit too repetitive). The key points are: children lack the ability to control their emotions because the prefrontal cortex hasn’t fully developed yet (which happens at age of 20s). They are also feeling more emotions because of the conflict between the desire for independence and the fear of separation from parents.

Once understood this aspect, it’s easier to deal with the challenges because you know where it comes from, even though it’s still an art to resolve it from day to day, for things like guessing the triggers of problems, mastering the balance between too much control vs not having a clear boundary, and so on. The second half provides some examples for inspiration, but can feel like random tips again. It’s an art at the end, what else would you expect?