The School of Life

A parenting guide providing compassionate instruction and insight into raising a resilient, well-balanced child.

Bringing up a child to be an authentic and mentally robust adult is one of life’s great challenges. It is also, fortunately, not a matter of luck.

The Good Enough Parent is a compendium of life lessons, including how to say ‘no’ to a child you adore, how to look beneath the surface of ‘bad’ behavior to work out what might really be going on, how to encourage a child to be genuinely kind, and how to handle the moods and gloom of adolescence.

Most importantly, this is a book that knows that perfection is not required – and could indeed be dangerous, because a key job of any parent is to induct a child gently into the imperfect nature of everything. Written in a tone that is encouraging, wry, and soaked in years of experience, The Good Enough Parent is an intelligent guide to raising a child who will one day look back on their childhood with just the right mixture of gratitude, humor, and love.