Parenting with Heart: How Imperfect Parents Can Raise Resilient, Loving, and Wise-Hearted Kids

Parents want to be the best person they can for their children, but much of the time they may feel like giraffes on ice--clumsy, unprepared, and in imminent danger of going down. The good news is, our children don't need perfect parents. They need authentic, fully-hearted, relationally engaged parents who can mess up and move on more than parents who always get it right.

In this freeing book, respected therapists and bestselling authors Stephen James and Chip Dodd invite parents to let go of perfectionism and micromanaging as they learn to parent from a place of emotional honesty and intimacy. Through their clinical experience and relatable true stories, they show parents that raising children to become capable, loving, and wise-hearted adults is far more about accepting our flaws than projecting an impossible standard to our children that we already know we can't live up to. Parents will learn how to resolve issues from their own childhoods, tune into their feelings and the emotions of their children, and be present with their families through both the best and worst of circumstances.


About the Author
Stephen James, MA, LPC-MHSP, NCC, is the founder and executive director of Sage Hill Counseling in Nashville, Tennessee. Before starting Sage Hill Counseling, Stephen worked in private practice for more than a decade. He also works with professionals, C-suite executives, and entrepreneurs to help them not only lead with greater confidence, clarity, integrity, and sustainability, but also to improve their family lives at home. He is the bestselling author of five books, including Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys. He and his wife, Heather, live in Nashville, Tennessee, and have four children.

Chip Dodd, PhD, LPC-MHSP, NCC, is a teacher, trainer, author, and counselor who has been working in the field of recovery and redemption for nearly three decades. He founded the Center for Professional Excellence at Journey Pure in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a multidisciplinary treatment program that brings freedom to professional men struggling with addiction, depression, burnout, anxiety, and other debilitating issues. He and his wife, Sonya, live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and have two grown sons. He is the author of the bestselling book The Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living and several other titles.