Book review: The Unofficial Guide to Adoptive Parenting by Sally Donovan

This month’s book review is written by @mummyb2020 about “The Unofficial Guide to Adoptive Parenting: The Small Stuff, The Big Stuff and the Stuff In Between” by Sally Donovon. Sally’s an adoptive mum and has written several books about parenting adopted children and helping them understand their feelings.

The book gives an insight into the baffling, dynamic, and often messy world of parenting children who’ve suffered trauma in their early lives. Sally combines the knowledge of what she’s learned in training courses with her experience of parenting two traumatised children. She provides realistic advice about how to be good enough in responding to the daily challenges of adoptive parenting.

This is what mummyb2020 had to say about it:

Things I love about the book

1. It tells it as it is. Nothing about parenting adopted children is sugar-coated. It’s explained in a very real and practical way.
2. So many practical tips and examples of therapeutic parenting, all doused in humour and encouraging self-acceptance of our natural human flaws.
3. The comedic style of writing which helps with every gut-wrenching page.
4. It helps you to step into what a day in a child’s little brain must be like. Where you can’t help but empathise despite the difficulties of parenting.
5. Having a biological child myself, I would find this book useful for parenting tips regardless!

Key themes 

• Self-acceptance that we’re only human
• the importance of ‘self-care’ throughout which is mentioned in almost every chapter and page
• the sheer difference in parenting adoptive and birth children
• don’t sweat the small stuff

So, if you’re looking for an easy-to-read guide to parenting adopting children from someone who’s been through it, this is the book for you.

“The Unofficial Guide to Adoptive Parenting: The Small Stuff, The Big Stuff and the Stuff In Between” by Sally Donovon are available to buy from Waterstones and Amazon. You can find out about all of the books Sally’s written on her website.

This review contains affiliate links. That means if you click on the links in the article to any of the books, and then buy them, I get paid a fee from Amazon or Waterstones.

Click here to read more book reviews.