Parenting is HARD.

And it helps to have mentors, and friends who have gone before you to get good sound advice on how to raise your kids. But what if all of your friends have terrible kids? (Just kidding!) Or none of them have kids that are older than your kids? Well, here we have rounded out the best parenting books that we have read! So you can ‘hang out’ with our ‘friends’ who are wise, and seasoned, and published!

Here are our top parenting books that we have read that have helped us on our parenting journey:

How to Raise and Adult an Adult : Breakfree of the Over-Parenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott Haims

Raising a Modern Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood by Robert Lewis

Strong Mothers, Strong Sons by Meg Meeker, MD

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

On Adoption

And as many of you know, we adopted our daughter from foster care. You can read more about that crazy and incredible journey in this blog post. But a great book we’ve read about adoption is this one:

20 Things Adopted Kid Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge