REVIEW: The Sensitive Ones: Healing and Understanding Your Child's Mental Health by Heather Nardi (2-stars)

I really enjoyed reading this book about the author's journey to find a path forward with her daughter's very young diagnosis of mental health issues at the age of 8 years old.  

The key recommendations are sound:  listen to your intuition, listen to your child, listen to your family, learn to be resilient and find comfort, strength and courage in modalities that feel right to you (within reason).

The book repeated a lot of information and I felt as though the author perpetuated some negative stereotypes or information even as she extolled the value of her own personal spiritual journey.  While she relates the story of a shift in her daughter at age 14 after being sent off to an in-patient clinical setting as having blossomed and grown into a highly sensitive empath, she still continues to refer to her daughter as having mental health issues.  

I felt like the author should choose -- is this a person with a mental health issue -- or is this a misunderstood sensitive empath? Sure, it can be both - but it seems to me that if she's quit all her medications, quit therapy and is using crystals and flower essences and coping mechanisms for resilience, maybe she isn't and never was suffering a mental health issue?

The author relates a story about how a social worker sent to her home interviewed her and said "I think that it's your parenting that is causing these issues."  The author was destroyed by this assessment - but then goes on to describe how her husband's more structured parenting style and her own laissez-faire style created confusion for her daughter and resulted in some of the behavior that was observed.  So, maybe, yes -- this was the result of contradictory parenting styles.  It's better to find out sooner than later -- and, I should imagine, if she's so self-aware and open minded that she's willing to seek out a medium and the advice of angels or ghosts, she might also be willing to examine how her own behavior and choices had an impact on her daughter. 

REVIEW: The Sensitive Ones: Healing and Understanding Your Child's Mental Health by Heather Nardi

RATING: 2-stars

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