Busy Toddler's Guide to Actual Parenting cover art

Busy Toddler's Guide to Actual Parenting

From Their First "No" to Their First Day of School (and Everything in Between)

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Busy Toddler's Guide to Actual Parenting

By: Susie Allison
Narrated by: Susie Allison
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About this listen

You don’t need to feel alone in parenting. You don’t need to feel like you’re failing. And you definitely don’t need another parenting book filled with theoretical advice about theoretical children. You need actual parenting help from an actual parent. It’s time to feel confident in your parenting.

Susie Allison, creator of the massive online community Busy Toddler, is a breath of fresh air. With her humor and engaging personality, she helps parents find their footing, shift their perspective on childhood, and laugh at the twists and turns of parenting we all face. (Yes, it’s okay that your child licked a shopping cart - they pretty much all do that.)

In Busy Toddler’s Guide to Actual Parenting, Susie gives the achievable advice she’s known for around the world, from daily life and #beingtwoisfine to tantrums and tattling and teaching the ABCs. The book also includes more than 50 of her famous activities that have helped thousands of parents make it to nap time - FYI, the popsicle bath is a game-changer.

Susie shares real moments raising her three kids as well as her professional knowledge from eight years as a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. Her simple and doable approach to parenting will leave you feeling so much better!

Let Susie give you the actual parenting advice you need.

©2020 Susie Allison (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing Parenting & Families Relationships Witty Parenting Toddlers
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Having followed Susie for years, this book has been a great encouragement. Like sitting down with your mum friend as she shares some stories and advice.
Im out of the toddler stage, but this book was still very relevant and a source of encouragement for me as a mum.

Such a great encouragement

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Susie’s IG page led me here and I’m so glad it did, I love her philosophies and approach to parenting little ones. This book is really straightforward to listen to that I think I could even convince my husband to listen to it. It’s very digestible and I’m excited to apply some of the tips/tactics included in this book. Miiiigght even succumb and put together some sensory bin stuff I guess… ;)
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with the world Susie

Way more than sensory bins

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can't listen to this. I tried 5 chapters. it's going no where. repetitive stories with no direction on how I can work on my parenting skills. just stories about things she's done in her life with her kids.

5 chapters and done

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I’ll start with the fact that I didn’t finish this book. I almost never stop reading books before I finish them, because even when they have information I may find dubious or disagree with I try to find the pearls of wisdom in them. However this book was too much for me. Firstly, she starts by saying she doesn’t like parenting books, but has written one. I don’t know what her reasoning here was but it’s like making shoe for people who don’t like shoes (which there’s no market for) and then telling the people who do like shoes, and who bought her shoe, that this shoe isn’t for them.

She then goes on to say that she’s putting her education as a teacher and what she knows about child development into this book. But then she talks about how there’s no major developmental milestone that you can reach, having made a mistake before it, that’s now permanent and unchangeable. That is to say, she emphasises that you can do nothing wrong as a parent and any mistakes you make before this milestone can be undone. While I appreciate her sentiment and that it’s coming from a good place, unfortunately many different studies have shown this is not true. For example, we know personality is largely set before the ages of about five or six. As a parent I understand this is a lot of pressure, but we are better off being honest about this and not deluding ourselves into making mistakes.

She also creates a new term, “taby”, which she cannot define other than with very wishy-washy statements about not quite a toddler but not still a baby, for “reasons”.

I will note her suggestion for a low-key weekly catch-up with a parent-friend is a great one.

All “feels”

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