Parenting for Peace

If we really want to change the world, let us raise a generation hardwired for peace and innovation from the very beginning. A child whose brain develops its capacity for self-regulation, self-reflection, trust, and empathy is a joy to parent. As an adult, this individual will have the heart to embrace and exemplify peace, the mind to innovate solutions to social and ecological challenges, and the will to enact them. Such a person is never a genetically predetermined given, but the result of dynamic interactions between genetics and environment, beginning before he or she is even born. Foundations for this level of health begin forming during the prenatal period, and some aspects of optimal development are influenced as early as conception. In the midst of our global human, economic and environmental crises, we have overlooked a profound means of cultivating a sustainable, peaceful future: the choices and attitudes with which we bring our children to life and shepherd them into adulthood. With compassion, good humour and engaging examples, this book points out fundamental missteps we have made through the ages, and explains why they're counter-productive. It gives straightforward guidelines using a unique 7-step/7-principle matrix for parents to foster their children's development in a vibrantly growth-oriented fashion, rather than a protection-oriented fashion. This is an essential guide for raising a generation of peacemakers.