Christian Version
Raising emotionally healthy and spiritually minded children.
Good Enough Parenting combines insights from the Scriptures, credible research, and the Louis’ experiences as church leaders, counsellors and parents. This parenting programme introduces the Four Core Emotional Needs, plus the need for Spiritual Values and Community (the “Plus-One” need). It explains why meeting them is absolutely crucial for raising emotionally healthy and spiritually minded children. Readers will also learn how to avoid “Exasperation Interactions” and the “Vortex of Conflict Escalation”, as well as how to practice “Nurturing Interactions”, as well as to “Repair and Reconnect” a fractured relationship with teenagers and adult children.Drawing from principles of Schema Therapy, when Core Emotional Needs are not met during the formative years of a child, negative schemas will develop. Conversely, when these needs are adequately met, positive schemas develop These core emotional needs are:
Connection & Acceptance
Healthy Autonomy & Performance
Reasonable Limits
Realistic Expectations
and the “Plus-One” need for
Spiritual Values & Community
While no one’s parenting can ever be perfect, Good Enough Parenting offers a step-by-step guide on how parents can learn to meet these core emotional needs satisfactorily, not perfectly, but “good enough”. This is done by guiding parents on how to not exasperate their children but to nurture them.
“In a world of too much information, Good Enough Parenting uses movies to teach parents how to MEET CORE EMOTIONAL NEEDS, and, at the same time, how to avoid passing down their own dysfunctional behaviors. Schema Therapy has been successful with adults, but I have always wanted to see someone do something on preventing schemas, or Lifetraps, in children, and here it is!”
~ Dr Jeffrey Young, Dept of Psychiatry, Columbia University, USA
Founder, Schema Therapy
Related Publications
Louis, J. P., & Louis, K. M. (2012). Good enough parenting: A Christian perspective on meeting core emotional needs and avoiding exasperation. Singapore: Louis Counselling & Training Services.
Louis, J. P., & Louis, K. M. (2010). I choose us: A Christian perspective on building love connection in your marriage by breaking harmful cycles. Singapore: Louis Counselling & Training Services.
Louis, J. P., & Louis, K. M. (2022). Love and respect in the New Testament: Are husbands and wives really from different planets? Teleios, 2(2), 37-44.