I just finished reading Duct Tape Parenting by Vicki Hoefle, and it's probably the best parenting book I've read in about a year. Such a wake-up call and such a dead-on diagnosis of problems I've personally experienced.

The title sounds silly, but so many friends and authors I respect recommended it to me, so I checked it out. The title comes from the core strategy: putting duct tape over your mouth and hands to stop yourself from nagging/directing/commenting on/fixing your child's problems. It focuses on training and relationship strategies rather than "band aid techniques" (e.g., nagging/time-outs) for treating bullet wounds (severe training and relationship deficiencies).

I found a lot of value in the examples of how parents applied the ideas in the book to their lives. I also liked the detailed training roadmap that goes through the life skills and social skills kids should master at each age level in order to be ready to be independent by age 18.

I highly recommend this and wish I found it sooner. Now I just need to go get some duct tape....

See below for my full notes on the book.

It took a long time, but I finally finished reading How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease ​by Michael Greger, M.D. The biggest reason why it took so long is that I got really into it and took a ton of notes. That's the biggest sign that I enjoyed a book and learned a lot from it.

I liked the scientific rigor of the book and how the author (a physician) focused on reviewing the actual strong published medical literature and studies for the best recommendations on diet and lifestyle. The book ended with around 150 pages of citations, the vast majority of which were PubMed-style references to medical journals, and I liked how most of the studies seemed to be of high quality (double blind, randomized, placebo-controlled). I also liked the author's wit and personality injected throughout the book.

I'm already putting into practice a lot of the recommendations from the book. Truly integrating these lessons is going to take some work, but this gives you a very actionable path forward to introducing more vegetables, spices, and good dietary practices (moving more towards whole, plant-based foods).

My full notes on the book are below.

I just finished reading ​Baby Makes Three by John Gottman. Before I got married, I learned a lot from his other more popular book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, and after that I also enjoyed his book What Makes Love Last.

I finally got around to reading the sequel about relationships in parenthood, and I found it a good refresher of his main lessons. Overall, it had a lot of overlap with the other two books, and the examples it drew upon were all based on conflicts and difficulties caused by having a baby. A lot of that resonated with my experience. Even though the lessons were similar to other books, it was a good refresher to read over the years, and I found the points around softened startup and the research around heart rate during flooding to be interesting and useful.

My full notes on the book are below.