Loosen the Grip
Somethings need to change
We all want to create the best lives possible for our children, and in an increasingly chaotic world, that level of control is often more harmful than helpful.
Kids are growing up without critical thinking skills, the ability to problem solve, and no real sense of self or what they want for themselves. In her 25+ year counseling career, Lisa K. Anderson has worked with twelve-year-olds who are throwing up in her office because they received a B-plus instead of an A on their assignment and their parents have let them know how disappointed they are, seven-year-olds who are afraid to play freely on the playground because their parents have ingrained them with all the ways they could get hurt if they aren’t extremely careful, and fifteen-year-olds who don’t know how to make themselves a simple meal or do their own laundry.
Lisa is no stranger to these missteps herself. Despite three years of constant education and voracious reading about how to be the best parent, Lisa was still unable to get out of her own way. When her daughter was six, her first-grade teacher suggested that she might have ADHD. After months of sessions with a psychologist, the doctor told Lisa that her daughter had BRAT syndrome. It took a minute, but Lisa realized was being told she’d raised a brat, never telling her child “no.” Her husband later confirmed this diagnosis, and Lisa had to face some hard truths about herself.
Even though she was doing what she thought was best for her child, she was actually only serving herself, projecting her own unresolved childhood issues onto her parenting style. Her daughter couldn’t be blamed. What Lisa had to change was herself.
And that is what this book is about. Parents need to recognize the damaging ways that their own trauma, hang-ups, and fixations impact and shape their children. In Lisa’s studied observations, these manifest in three distinct parenting styles—and sometimes a mix of all three:
- Dependency-Based Needs: Parents who insist on doing everything for their child to fulfill the parent’s need to be needed, to keep their child dependent on them.
- Fear-Based Needs: Parents who are focused on keeping their child from any circumstance that may cause them any level of perceived harm, to fulfill their own fear of feeling unsafe.
- Reward-Based Needs: Parents who focus on controlling their child and their environment so that they behave, achieve, and appear to the level that fulfills the parent’s need for perfection and image.
If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, face some hard truths, and commit to making changes that will help you become the best parent for your child, pick up your copy today.
Download a Free Chapter
If you’d like to do some more reading before buying Loosen the Grip, Lisa has made chapter one downloadable for free. Please fill out the simple form below to get yours!
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