Book Review: Bringing Up Bébé (The Peace Secret of French Parenting Style)

As parents, we all know that parenting and raising children are not easy matters. In developing their children’s personalities, parents play a very important role. There is no doubt that when it comes to disciplining their children, parents will always face challenges and obstacles. That’s why anyone becoming a parent should understand and even equip themselves with knowledge about parenting.

Talking about parenting knowledge, there are actually numerous parenting books you can read and learn from. In parenting books, you can find different types of parenting styles. Each style has advantages and disadvantages. Some parenting books may even include parenting styles from various countries. So, you can really find one parenting style that may be perfectly suited to your children.

Bringing Up Bébé (The Peace Secret of French Parenting Style)

“Bringing Up Bébé,” which discusses the peace secret of French parenting style, is one of the interesting parenting books you can learn from. Pamela Druckerman, the author and also a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, compiled the book “Bringing Up Bébé” based on her experience of becoming a mother while living in France.

Let’s look at the “Bringing Up Bébé” behind-the-scenes story and the book outline!

The author’s background in writing “Bringing Up Bébé”

Pamela’s story begins when she moved to France and began compiling her book. She lived in an apartment with Simon, a British journalist and the father of her three daughters. After giving birth to her first child, Pamela then gave birth to twins. She has learned a lot about parenting her three children and understands French’s parenting style.

A few weeks after giving birth, Pamela brought the baby home and felt surprised when she got questions from her neighbors, like “Has your baby done his night’s sleep yet?” For Pamela, this type of question is strange because she thought it was normal for newborns to wake up frequently at night, keeping their parents awake all night.

Pamela finally found the surprising fact that parents in France considered sleeping through the night for a newborn to be very important at all. They even have their own way of training their babies to sleep all night without disturbing their parents’ bedtime.

During living and raising their children in France, Pamela discovered so many new things regarding the French’s parenting style, such as training the baby to sleep all night, teaching children to be patient and learn to wait, disciplining their children at the dining table during their mealtime, and everything related to the matter of manners and decency.

After learning a lot about French’s parenting style, Pamela eventually realized that being a mother does not mean having to sacrifice many of her pleasures, and a child does not always have to be the center of family attention. As a mother, we deserve happiness without putting aside the happiness of our children.

That’s what Pamela Druckerman experienced while living in France, which inspired her to start authoring the parenting book “Bringing Up Bébé.” In compiling the book, she combines personal experiences, conversations with many mothers in French, interviews with doctors and experts on childcare, and also uses a number of references on how to educate and care for children from the experts.

If you really want to discover the peace secret of French parenting style, you can find it in the book “Bringing Up Bébé,” authored by Pamela Druckerman. You can find this parenting book both in offline book stores and online stores such as Amazon, Book Depository, etc.

What Can You Learn About Parenting From Bringing Up Bébé?

Bringing Up Bébé Glossary

Of course, this book contains all of the facts about French parenting style, including the dos and don’ts when it comes to children. Basically, most parents in France are never stressed when parenting their children. There is no eating drama at mealtime in France because children eat whatever is on the table, including vegetables. At bedtime, no arguing occurs since they will go to sleep on time, so parents can also take a rest.

Having said that, parents in France never let social media influence their parenting decisions.Thus, children in France keep growing happily, creatively, and also with high curiosity. Isn’t the French parenting style what you always want to apply to your children?

Children are separate and qualified entities who have tastes, pleasures, and experiences about the world themselves,”

according to a quote in the book “Bringing Up Bébé.”

From the quote, we should realize that children deserve happiness in their growing phases. As a parent, you also should be happy while raising and parenting your children. There is no doubt that playing the role of a mother is not always easy. There would be many things that were depressing and frustrating.

Through the French Parenting Style book as written by Pamela Druckerman, you can also try to apply many things that have a direct positive influence on your children. It would be interesting for you to learn how to increase sensitivity in parenting and disciplining their children.

Even though there are many dilemmas and even things that are not always easy to apply, based on Pamela Druckerman’s experiences as a mother, there are numerous parenting tips you can try.

In “Bringing Up Bébé,”, you can also learn and understand the importance of giving a pause every time a child cries in training the children to; sleep through the night, be patient and learn to wait; say “thank you,” “good bye,”  and “hello” in some certain situations; and introduce them to finding their own pleasure, etc.

You can also find a way to balance your life as a mother. In fact, mothers in France decide to return to work after giving birth. Reportedly, some mothers in France also felt guilty about returning to work when their children were still babies.

“Bringing Up Bébé” also teaches you how to enjoy your life while parenting your children. For example, you can enjoy coffee in a relaxed manner, and your children will be calm at mealtime.

It is known that French children will easily obey their parents’ orders, when asked to wait, they will wait. When they are forbidden to do something, they will obey. These are some images that Pamela Druckerman finds so appealing that she wishes to practice French parenting with her children.

Last, “Bringing Up Bébé” by Pamela Druckerman can be read and learned from by expectant mothers, mothers, educators, and those of us who are interested in French parenting styles. Delivered in a neat storytelling style, this book can be one of the most important references for optimizing child development.

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