Time-Out for Parents: A Guide to Compassionate Parenting

Employing a method of discipline used for children, this Zen guide encourages parents to look inwardly and reflect on their motivations in order to respond to their child's needs from a clearer, kinder perspective. It contains meditative exercises for stressed or disgruntled parents and provides accounts of parent/child interactions. In each one, the self-aware parent describes how they would have reacted before learning to take time-out to discover their own motivations. Then each parent tells how he or she responded to the situation from a clearer, kinder viewpoint.

Cheri Huber is the author of 19 books, including There Is Nothing Wrong with You, When You're Falling, Dive,and Sweet Zen. She founded the Mountain View Zen Center in Mountain View, California, and the Zen Monastery Practice Center in Murphys, California, and teaches in both communities. She travels widely and often, leading workshops and retreats around the United States and abroad, most recently in Costa Rica and Italy. She founded Living Compassion in 2003, a nonprofit group comprised of There Is Nothing Wrong With You Retreats (based on the book); Global Community for Peace: The Assisi Peace Project; The Africa Vulnerable Children Project; and Open Air Talk Radio, her weekly call-in radio show originating from Stanford University. She lives in Murphys, California.