The Parenting Handbook: Your Guide to Raising Resilient Children

Being a parent can feel overwhelming and exhausting. So much of the prevailing advice on raising children leaves parents feeling conflicted and confused rather than confident that what they’re doing is best for their children.

In The Parenting Handbook: Your Guide to Raising Resilient Children, Tammy Schamuhn and Tania Johnson—founders of the Institute of Child Psychology, child psychologists, and moms with an immense social media following—give parents the answers they so desperately need. Using the latest research in neuroscience and developmental psychology, and weaving in concrete strategies, Tammy and Tania have created an essential roadmap for parenting that truly works. Here you will find the secrets to raising children who are kind, empathic, self-regulated, emotionally intelligent, and who grow up to become gritty, resourceful, successful critical thinkers who can handle hard things.

After reading this handbook, you will be well-equipped to:

• tackle tough parenting problems such as screen time and bedtime battles,
• implement effective discipline strategies,
• manage meltdowns and tantrums,
• foster optimal brain development in your children,
• create positive mental health outcomes,
• lose it less on your child and be the parent you always hoped you'd be.

Tammy and Tania provide practical tools that you can implement immediately. This book is the ultimate guide to nurturing emotional regulation, resiliency, connection, and well-being in children.

Advance Praise
“The Parenting Handbook is beautiful, reflective, and deeply compassionate. Tammy and Tania weave the latest parenting research, scripts, tools, and strategies into a relatable book that fuels connection, love, and joy.”
—Dr Shefali, Clinical Psychologist and New York Times bestselling author

“Tania and Tammy have woven together the many themes that come up so often in daily family life. They sensitively provide answers to the questions that sometimes confound us as parents. Reading this book will give you the feeling ‘I can do this’ and provide you with the confidence to be the very best parent you can be.”
—Kim John Payne M.ED., bestselling author of Simplicity Parenting, The Soul of Discipline, and Emotionally Resilient Tween & Teens

Tammy Schamuhn and Tania Johnson are registered psychologists, registered play therapists, co-founders of the Institute of Child Psychology, and— most importantly— moms (with five children between them). They’ re both internationally acclaimed speakers, and present global workshops on a variety of topics, such as childhood anxiety, trauma, depression, resiliency, and emotion regulation. Their workshops are packed with the latest research, tools, and strategies to foster positive mental health outcomes and resiliency in children. Tammy and Tania are the creators and hosts of the popular The Childpsych Podcast. They both maintain private practices in Alberta, Canada, where they live and are raising their families.

Tammy was born and raised in Alberta, Canada. She earned a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta and worked as an elementary teacher before completing her Master’ s degree in counseling in Oregon. She supervises Master’ s-level counseling students, play therapists, and provisional psychologists and is a part-time faculty member at City University Seattle. Tammy also has a big place in her heart for animals; she founded the Child-Centered Animal-Assisted Therapy Association (www.ccaata.com) and, alongside her husband, runs her own animal-assisted therapy program called Hooves of Hope Ranch.

Tania was born in South Africa, where she received an Honours degree in psychology. She spent several years teaching in Taiwan before adventuring to places like Mount Everest base camp and the Andes in Peru and Bolivia. She then completed a one-year internship at Cancer Treatment Centres of America in Chicago, where her focus was on supporting patients in the stem cell unit. Tania then earned her Master’ s degree in counseling from City University of Seattle. She and her husband were foster parents to four First Nations children for five years and have two bio children of their own. She currently supervises Master’ s-level students and provisional psychologists. Tania works primarily from the perspective of attachment theory, which focuses on bonds between parents and children. Her gift, both in the therapy room and when writing, is to translate the latest research into concrete strategies that parents can implement in everyday life with their children.