From beloved psychiatrist and associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, a warm, essential guide that gives parents practical strategies to stay calm and connected to themselves and their children even in the most stressful moments, so that their approach reflects their intentions and their values rather than their triggers.

When your toddler melts down or your teen rolls their eyes, your brain may not register a kid who missed a nap, or a teen who is going through a normal developmental stage. It registers a threat. Suddenly you’re not the calm, measured adult you want to be, your yelling, fixing, appeasing, lecturing, or shutting down, reacting from the child inside you instead of parenting the child in front of you. And then comes the regret. You’re not a bad parent, you’re a human one and there is a better way.

In Becoming The Parent You Wish You Had, psychiatrist and UCLA associate professor Robin Berman, MD, author of Permission to Parent, draws on nearly three decades of clinical experience to offer parents a practical, warm, science-backed roadmap for staying calm, connected, and grounded, even in the hardest parenting moments. Dr. Berman’s message is both simple and transformative: you can’t coregulate with your child from a place of dysregulation. So, parent yourself first. But how?

This book introduces parents to The Mantra Method, an innovative tool Dr. Berman developed to interrupt reactive patterns before they take over. It’s an easy neuro-hack: when you feel triggered, you Name the Reflex (recognize whether you want to yell, fix/appease or check out); Say your Mantra: to shift from your reactive brain to your wiser one; and Implement Opposite Action: do exactly opposite of what your nervous system is screaming at you to do. With this tool, you stop the downward spiral before it starts.

Each chapter focuses on one of eight core traits of a well-adjusted adult, and will guide you toward parenting in that direction. Along the way, you’ll learn to let go of some old patterns, pain and baggage you may have inherited from your own parents, and replace them with a calm, loving connection.

Picture a Sunday night dinner twenty years from now with your grown child who is thriving, well-adjusted and at home with themselves. That dinner starts with the choices you make today. This book gives you the tools to parent toward it now.