Book Review #001: The Power of Showing Up

How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become

I’d started recording the books I’d read when I started, The Family Alpha. You can find links to the various years with the list of books below; I stopped recording in 2018, and I don’t remember why…

It doesn’t matter why I stopped; the list has returned.

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Read Previous Years Here: 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

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I’m going to go through my audiobook library and record the books I’d listened to this year and try to remember what I’ve read in paperback or hardcover as well to get an accurate 2022 list.

I will be reviewing the books here as I complete them, beginning with the last book I completed, The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired

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The Power of Showing Up

For starters, this book was purchased and read at the recommendation of Anthony Migliorino, my business partner and the host of the Weekly Fatherhood Call held within the Fraternity of Excellence, which he has been running since 2019.

Daniel Siegel and Tina Bryson have tag-teamed several books which have been instrumental in my advancement to better understand how to be a more integrated father and how to be the man my children need me to be.

The reason I’ve purchased and read (I include that as I know many, at times myself, who buy books without reading them - I read all the parenting books I buy and will eventually get to the rest) other books by Siegel and Bryson such The Whole Brain Child and No Drama Discipline is because I know that the way I was parented formed my foundation, but it was an incomplete picture to what being a father is all about and to build on this, I relied upon my mentor in fatherhood Anthony to show resources which have aided him along the journey. Each has made me more aware of how everything I do, from engagements with my children to recollections of my past, all play a role in what type of parent I am today, impacting the type of adult my child becomes tomorrow.

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Recent Piece With Immediately Applicable Parenting Advice

Kill Your God-Like Status

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The Review

One of my “go-to” mantras is that children need more presence than presents. Meaning that they need more time with mom and dad with less stuff from mom and dad. For me to be on that track and in agreement with the message of parents needing to be more intentional with their time around the kids, it made sense that I’d appreciate a book titled “The Power of Showing Up”.

You can become the safe harbor for your own children that you never had as a child.

There are many great quotes along the lines of this one, I will share a few here, but none will do justice to the entirety of the work captured on these pages. There are times where I found myself thinking, this is basic messaging they’re reiterating here and there, but the reminder is needed, not everyone has already begun the path of being a more involved parent, and with that in mind, it made more sense that the book circles back around a few times to ensure the base fundamentals of understanding your children are crystal clear and their reasoning is both accepted and understood.

By getting clear on your own experiences, and developing a coherent narrative about them—making sense of what happened to you and how it influenced your development—you can earn the type of attachment approach that allows you to learn how to parent in ways that are completely different from, and much healthier than, the ways you were raised.

This book dives into the 4 S’s needed for Healthy Attachment and Relationships

To meet your child where they need you, you’ll need to incorporate the 4 S’s into your daily relationship, with those S’s being the need for: Safe, Seen, Soothed, and Secure.